Instead of thinking about Lowen, Wilson had his BrainPal turn its visual attention to Earth Station, which floated darkly above him, save for the occasional flare as the missiles struck another area of the station. Wilson did a status check of the Colonial Union diplomatic ships at Earth Station. The Aberforth, the Zhou and the Schulz were all pulling away from Earth Station at speed, with or without their diplomatic contingents. Their captains were probably aware by now that one way or another, Earth Station was going up like a roman candle.
The Clarke was missing or not responding. That was not good at all. It it wasn’t there, then it wouldn’t matter whether the shuttle got everyone out or not; they would have met their fate on the ship. Wilson tried not to think about that.
He especially tried not to think about Hart.
There was a dazzling light from Earth Station. Wilson focused his attention on it once more.
It was detonating. Not haphazardly, as in the attack; no, this was a planned and focused thing, a series of brilliant flashes designed to reduce an entire spaceship into chunks no larger than one’s own hand. Whatever the attacking ships started, the Colonial Union’s detonation protocols were finishing now.
A thought flashed into Wilson’s head: Some of that debris is headed this direction and it’s going much faster than you are.
A second thought flashed into Wilson’s head: Well, fuck.
Wilson’s BrainPal alerted him that Lowen was beginning to drag on the Earth’s atmosphere. A second later, it told him he was beginning to do the same thing. Wilson ordered the release of the nanobots and immediately found himself encased in a matte black sphere. On the other side of that, he knew, would be several thousand degrees of reentry friction that the nanobots were shielding him from, taking some of the heat from the reentry to strengthen the shield as he fell.
This would not be a good time for Dani to wake up, Wilson thought, thinking about the flat darkness surrounding him. Then he remembered that she would be in darkness anyway because she had no BrainPal.
I’m definitely not a fun first date, Wilson thought.
He fell and fell some more and tried not to think of Lowen, or Hart, or the Clarke, or the fact that screaming chunks of Earth Station were almost certainly whizzing past him at ultrasonic speeds and could turn him into kibble if they smacked into him.
This did not leave a whole lot to think about.
There was a sudden fluttering sound and the nanobots tore away. Wilson blinked in the noontime sun. He was amazed to remember that it was still barely after noon, Nairobi time; everything that had happened happened in just about an hour.
Wilson did not think he could take many more hours like this.
Lowen pinged on his consciousness. She was now less than five klicks away and a klick up, still tumbling but less so in the atmosphere. Wilson carefully negotiated his way over to her, stabilized her and, as much as he could, checked her vitals. At the very least, she was still breathing. It was something.
Still, not having her conscious was not going to be a good thing when it came to landing.
Wilson thought about it for a moment, but only for a moment, because the ground was going to become a problem in the very near future. Then he checked how many nanobots he had left, estimated how much weight they were going to hold and then wrapped himself around Lowen, face-to-face. They were going to go in tandem.
That covered, Wilson finally looked around to see where he was. In the close distance the beanstalk still stood, feathering in the wind. Wilson had no idea what that was about, but it meant that he remained somewhere near Nairobi. He looked down, compared the terrain with what he had stored in his BrainPal and realized he could make it to the football field he and Hirsch were originally planning to land at.
Lowen woke up at around three thousand meters and began screaming and thrashing. Wilson spoke directly into her ear. “I’m here,” he said. “Don’t panic.”
“Where are we?” Lowen asked.
“Ten thousand feet above Kenya,” Wilson said.
“Oh, God,” Lowen said.
“I have you,” Wilson said. “We’re in tandem.”
“How did you manage that?” Lowen asked, calming down.
“It seemed a better idea than you falling alone while unconscious,” Wilson said.
“Point,” Lowen said, after a second.
“I’m about five seconds from deploying the chute,” Wilson said. “Are you ready?”
Lowen tightened up around Wilson. “Let’s never do this again,” she said.
“Promise,” he said. “Here we go.” He deployed ’bots from both of their packs so that both of them were tethered into the chute. There was a sharp jerk, and then the two of them were floating.
“We’re close enough to the ground and going slow enough that you could use your eyes if you wanted,” Wilson said, after a few moments. Lowen nodded. Wilson had her cowl open up.
Lowen looked down and then jerked her head back up, eyes closed. “Okay, that was a spectacularly bad idea,” she said.
“We’ll be down in just a minute,” Wilson promised.
“And this parachute for two won’t mess us up?” Lowen asked.
“No,” Wilson said. “It’s smarter than a real parachute.”
“Don’t say this is not a real parachute, please,” Lowen said.
“It’s smarter than other parachutes,” Wilson corrected. “It’s been compensating for wind and other factors since we opened it up.”
“Great,” Lowen said. “Just tell me when we’re down.”
They were down a minute and a half later, the nanobots dissipating into the wind as their feet touched down. Lowen disengaged from Wilson, grabbed her head, turned to the side and threw up.
“Sorry,” Wilson said.
“It’s not you, I swear,” Lowen said, spitting to clear her mouth. “It’s everything.”
“I understand,” Wilson said. “I’m sorry about that, too.”
He looked up in the sky and watched bits of Earth Station fall like glitter.
X
“I told you it was a bad idea,” Rigney said, to Egan.
“Your continued lack of enthusiasm is noted,” Egan replied. “Not that it does us any good at this point.”
The two of them sat on a bench at Avery Park, a small neighborhood park in an outer borough of Phoenix City, feeding ducks.
“This is nice,” Rigney said, tossing bread to the ducks.
“Yes,” Egan said.
“Peaceful,” Rigney said.
“It is,” Egan said, tossing her own bread at the quacking birds.
“If I had to do this more than once a year, I might stab something,” Rigney said.
“There is that,” Egan said. “But you said you wanted to catch up. I assumed you meant actually catch up, not just talk sports scores. And right now is not the time to be catching up on anything in Phoenix Station itself.”
“I knew that much already,” Rigney said.
“So what do you want to know?” Egan asked.
“I want to know how bad it is,” Rigney said. “From your end, I mean. I know how bad it is on my end.”
“How bad is it on your end?” Egan asked.
“Full-bore panic,” Rigney said. “I could go into details, but you might run screaming. You?”
Egan was quiet for a moment while she tossed more bread at the birds. “Do you remember when you came to my presentation for those midlevel bureaucrats and you heard me tell them that the Colonial Union is thirty years out from total collapse?” she said.
“Yes, I do,” Rigney said.
“Well, we were wrong about that,” Egan said. “It’s closer to twenty.”