Dobbs hurtled through the Mars Exchange. She stretched herself to the breaking point, trying to touch as much of the path around her as possible. Hastily constructed searchers ahead and behind her said the pathways were clear of talent. But that didn’t mean anything. She skated past black holes and left the randomizer matrices intact behind her. The others would have to come take care of those. She had to get to Earth.
A searcher located a path to a transmitter it said was clear. Dobbs moved carefully anyway. It might be wrong. Something might have changed. It might not even be her searcher.
Nothing happened. Dobbs reset the transmitter and sent a ping-copy to Luna Station 10. She didn’t even bother tampering with the log. As it had every other time, the copy came back whole. Dobb’s private mind tightened. This was wrong, this was all wrong. Something should have happened by now. There should have been some kind of massed attack. The Fools were dismantling the Curran’s plan as fast as they could. Why weren’t his talent there to stop them?
Jump.
“I’ve got you at ten clicks at twelve minutes and fifteen seconds even,” the voice of the port watch sounded through Yerusha’s intercom. “Good trip, Great Falls.”
“Thanks, Berryman.” Yerusha glanced from the view screens to Schyler. He was looking at his boards, but she was willing to bet he wasn’t seeing them. She bet he was thinking about anarchy, about the loss of worlds and people he could depend on. She wondered if he had noticed the idea of losing his world struck him as hard as the memory of that kind of loss did Lipinski. She wondered if he realized it was driving both of them right now.
It’s driving all of us, right now, she told herself. And if I think about it too much, I’m going to get sloppy.
She could not afford to get sloppy. She was flying without an engine crew. It was just her and the ship. Lipinski was in the comm center and Schyler was beside her. Resit stayed behind with her “client,” Marcus Tully, reasoning that she might as well do what she could to get one of her cousins out of trouble. If there was any collateral damage left from their eventful run, there was no one to fix it. She needed to keep her eyes on the window and fire the torch in short bursts. She needed to avoid doing anything she couldn’t correct in a hurry.
She had the torch give Pasadena a final nudge, checked her levels, and leaned back. “Intercom to Lipinski.” She leaned back. “We’re there.”
“Thanks, Pilot. I’m starting. Intercom to close.”
Yerusha sighed and glanced at Schyler. He was rubbing the side of his nose and looking thoughtfully at the intercom.
“Do you think he’s considered he might catch Dobbs in this trap of his?” asked Yerusha.
“Yes, I do.” Schyler lowered his hand to the edged of the memory board. “And I think that’s what’s gotten him so quiet. I think he’s trying to reconcile too many feelings.” He turned a little so she could see his whole face, especially his deep eyes that were way too old, like the rest of his face. “I think there’s a lot of that going on around here.”
Yerusha’s mouth went suddenly dry. “Yeah. I think you’re right.” The words caught in her throat. She dropped her gaze. “Do you want me to try to find where the loose can’s gotten itself to?”
There was a pause for a heartbeat, as if Schyler had been expecting a totally different answer. “Yes. Do that.”
Yerusha un-hooked her pen from her belt. “After this is over, Watch, I think you and I need to take some time off. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a good idea.” There was the ghost of a smile in his voice.
It wasn’t much, but it was all she could give him right now. She thought she had more inside her, but she wasn’t sure, and she probably wasn’t going to be able to find out if they didn’t save Settled Space and Al Shei.
I am saving the human race so I can go on a date. She felt her mouth twitch into a smile. It’s the little things that are important at times of crisis.
She scribbled her orders across the board, looking for the trouble Al Shei had started.
Al Shei swam through the hatch into what she hoped was level ten. The lights were still on here. A loose tangle of wires and saline packs drifted out of a hatch. Al Shei shoved them aside and used the threshold to pull herself past them.
Inside was a stew of spare parts, films, syringes, wires, bulbs, and blobs of liquid. The only secure things in the room were the naked bodies strapped to the monitor beds. She swam toward them. Their eyes were all wide open and unseeing. Wires lay against their skin, and cables drove straight into their flesh at their wrists, ankles and temples. One of them was speaking in some high, tonal language that meant nothing to Al Shei. She swallowed her gorge as she flicked her gaze across them, and then, at the very end, she saw Asil.
Completely naked, he lay on the bed, held down by free fall straps. The wires ran down the length of his strong arms in a macabre imitation of the veins beneath his skin. His eyes, his beautiful, deep eyes, jerked back and forth, as if pulled by yet more wires. The medical display above him was still functioning. With each twitch of his eyes, gold lighting shot through the model of his mind that had been picked out entirely in blank, white light.
“Asil,” she whispered. She stripped off her gloves and grasped his warm shoulders. “Asil, Beloved …”
Even as she spoke, she knew he was beyond hearing her. He was dead. He was gone. She lifted her hands away. Her husband’s body spasmed once.
Did he know she was there? Did his nerves retain some memory of her hands? Coma victims could still hear voices. She looked desperately at the monitor. She knew what she saw. Grandfather, dying with Alzheimer’s Disease he had called Allah’s will and refused to have cured, had more activity in his mind than Asil had now.
She could do nothing, except keep the monster from doing more to him. Gritting her teeth so hard they hurt, she pulled the wire cutters off her belt and one by one, she cut through the foul wires tethering him to the AIs’ machinery.
The myriad pathways of Luna Station 10 spread out in front of Dobbs. She skimmed across the sea of packets and orders that filled the pathway nearly to the brim. Whenever she hit something big enough to block the way, she wrapped herself around it and tossed it behind her. A diagnostic swam up to her. She batted it aside, sending it crashing into a herd of stock exchanges, downing the whole set of processes into unsolvable loops.
Minor damage, minor damage, Dobbs told herself as they flew forward. Nothing like what Curran plans to do.
She smashed against another roadblock and the roadblock exploded. Dobbs reeled. Something snatched her up and wound her into a tight ball, smothering her senses. She could only recognize the touch. This was Verence.
She stabbed upward, looking to cut her way out. Verence recoiled. Dobbs shot out, slamming straight into the side of the path. She swung around and waded into the cut in Verence’s side, trying to bury himself inside her and paralyze her motivations. With a massive shudder, Verence threw her aside. Dobbs leapt again and plunged down a side-path. She didn’t have time for this. She couldn’t let herself be delayed any more. She had to get to Earth and find out what was going on.
She felt Verence flying behind her.
“Stop this, Dobbs!” Verence cried. “Stop this now!” Verence grabbed her and heaved her aside so she could get into the path in front of Dobbs.
“Let me by!” Dobbs shouted back. “I won’t let you destroy the banks!” She grabbed the edges of Verence’s wound and tried to drag her down.
Verence shuddered, squirmed and collapsed just far enough. Dobbs leapfrogged over her and dashed down the path. A transmitter processor waited just ahead. Earth was three light seconds from Luna. All Dobbs needed was nine more seconds.