He stumbled out of the vehicle and saw that spiked steel balls, scattered all around, had blown the tires. The crowds of refugees were just metres away, hidden behind a cordon of cars that had been pushed over on to their sides, mirroring the ASI’s own defences.
Shots came from there, aimed at the cordon of tanks. Hunching over, Saul ran forward, hoping to lose himself in the mass of people surrounding the Array. The sonar tanks let out an ear-splitting blast and he dropped to his knees, hands clasped to his ears.
Somehow he managed to get up again and keep running, half blinded with pain and unable to hear a damn thing. He squeezed between two torched cars, and seconds later was caught up in a great mob of people desperate to get away from the tanks.
Another sonar blast rolled over him, and he collapsed on to churned black mud and vomited noisily. Barely avoiding getting trampled, he balled himself up, his breath emerging in shuddering gasps as people thronged past him.
It had started to rain, a gentle pattering of it cool against his skin and washing away the blood and sweat. Saul stood up and staggered away, the world so silent in his deafness that it felt as if he were in a dream, yet pushing and stumbling past an endless mass of humanity. Passing a burned-out shopping mall, its windows shattered and its shelves stripped bare, he kept moving until the muted sound of fighting faded with distance.
The rain became torrential, thunder booming out across the Array and its surroundings, so he sought shelter under the corner of a vast tarpaulin that roofed an impromptu chapel, where several hundred worshippers kneeled on the grass to listen to a preacher deliver a sermon from the rear of a flat-bed truck. As he slumped down to the ground, the air was filled with hosannahs, at which point he realized he could hear again.
He waited until he’d recovered his breath, then put in a call to Olivia.
TWENTY-FOUR
Florida Array, 8 February 2235
‘Saul? What the hell happened to you? Are you okay?’
‘I’m still alive, if that’s what you mean,’ Saul replied over the link. He had to clamp his hands over his ears to be able to hear Olivia’s voice. ‘Can’t say it wasn’t a close call a couple of times.’
‘Jesus, Saul, I really thought . . .’
The preacher’s voice grew to a roar, full of the promise of damnation. Saul ducked back outside from under the tarpaulin, deciding he’d rather take his chances with the rain, after all.
‘I know what you thought. Listen, those files I found at Jeff’s cabin? I cracked them. I know what they are now.’
‘Saul . . . I’m in Arizona, with Jeff.’ She paused. ‘And Mitchell.’
He stopped dead in his progress. ‘You’re fucking kidding me? Do you have any idea what he was hiding round the back of that damn cabin?’
Her words came in a nervous rush. ‘Yes, he told me everything. About the growths, Mitchell, the Founders – all that, and a million and one other things. But he doesn’t have a copy of the files himself. He’s going to need them. We all are.’
Saul started moving again. ‘I’ve seen classified videos,’ he said, aware of the hysteria lurking at the bottom of his throat, ‘and I’ve read documents all telling me how the world is coming to an end. I’m even scared to let myself think about it too much, in case I go crazy.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘I don’t know, Olivia. How the hell should I be?’
‘I don’t know either,’ she replied, her voice choking on tears. ‘I wish I did.’
Goddamn her. A part of him still wanted to hold her in his arms. He thought of Jeff, and felt a simmering resentment that he thought he’d outgrown long ago.
‘Look, I can send a copy of the files over to you right now.’
‘No, don’t do that. I found out they’ve got routines built into them that give away your location if they’re transmitted over any kind of network.’
Saul groaned, remembering that Donohue had told him much the same thing. ‘I sent them to you,’ Saul reminded her, ‘when they were still encrypted.’
‘Then it’s a good thing I didn’t stay at home, where I could be found.’
‘Fine, so what exactly does Jeff want to do with the files?’
‘Broadcast them,’ she replied. ‘People need to know what’s really going on, especially out there in the colonies. By the time the news starts spreading, we’ll be on our way to somewhere safe, and then it won’t matter if those people who tried to kill Jeff figure out where we are.’
‘Why Arizona?’
‘We’re at the Launch Pad facility,’ she said. ‘With the same people that took you and Mitchell up on your sub-orbital jump, remember?’
He ad a sudden mental flash of sleek black VASIMRs extending in ranks across the desert sands. ‘Like I could ever forget. But why are you there?’
‘Because they also run flights to the Moon, old-style Moon launches for people rich enough to afford it. It takes about three days to Copernicus City, the hard way – especially if you want to avoid passing through the Florida Array, for any reason.’
He realized, with a start, what she was telling him. ‘You’re seriously telling me you’re going to fly to the Moon?’
‘Strictly speaking, it’s only Mitchell that’s flying there.’
The rain started to ease off. ‘But what about you and Jeff? How are you getting there?’
He heard her sigh. ‘I’m not going to the Moon,’ she explained, ‘and neither is Jeff.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Saul listened as Olivia told him their plans to head for the Jupiter orbital platform.
‘You’re crazy,’ he said, once she had finished. ‘The research platforms weren’t designed to sustain independent populations. They need constant gate contact with Earth to function, as it is. And even if you could find some way to survive indefinitely, you’d be cut off from everything you’ve ever known.’
‘And, out in the colonies, we wouldn’t be?’
At least on some of the colonies you’d have open air to breathe, he thought.
Saul’s feet were getting numb from all the walking. He came across an army truck, with trampled bodies scattered all around, and pressed both hands over his mouth and nose, to avoid inhaling the dreadful stench of decomposition. He next made towards a maintenance shed, in hopes of finding a car that hadn’t been trashed or burned out.
‘What about Galileo?’ he asked, once he’d left the foul-smelling truck behind. ‘There’s nothing to stop you and Jeff both going there, and Mitchell too.’
‘The new wormhole gate won’t reach orbit around Galileo for months.’
‘Doesn’t matter. There are enough emergency supplies on board that starship carrying the gate to keep several people alive for months, maybe longer.’
‘No,’ her voice was adamant, ‘I’ve talked this over with Jeff. I know you think we’re crazy, but we spent a good chunk of our lives on the Jupiter station, and the people there need us.’
‘I . . . guess I understand.’
‘For you it’s easy. You can just head through to the Lunar Array and make your way to the Galileo gate.’
He laughed bitterly. ‘Not any more. There are people out looking for me here.’
‘What happened?’
‘It’s a long story, but if they find me or if I try and get back inside the Array, I’m a dead man. But if I can reach the Lunar Array some other way, I have a fighting chance of getting through.’