Three. Four.
The bounce-copies flew back across the vacuum to meet their owners.
Five.
The AIs leapt out into space.
Six.
The receiver scopes turned on their well-maintained gyros to stare long and hard at the Sun.
Two seconds later, over a hundred patterns of photon and thought rocketed out into the boundless vacuum.
Level thirteen was deserted. The cameras tracked her, but the waldos didn’t move.
He knows I’m coming, thought Al Shei. And he doesn’t care. A wave of weariness washed over her, and she found she didn’t have the strength to wonder why that was.
One hatchway stood open in the left hand wall, inviting her in. She took her bearings. The carpeting was above her and the cameras under her feet, so that was an outer door. The office probably.
He was in there. Curran was in there.
You don’t need to do this, said Asil. Just come home to me.
“I do need to do this,” she told him as she kicked for the hatch. “He killed you, Asil.”
I know, Beloved. I know.
She grabbed onto the threshold and held herself in place. A broad-shouldered man with longish, grey hair and wearing burgundy coveralls floated above a great, square box of a desk, peacefully gazing out a window as the stars wheeled in the darkness. Al Shei’s mustard-yellow reflection showed up clearly on the glass.
He turned his head and smiled at her. “‘Dama Al Shei, won’t you come in?” He waved his hand, a reserved gesture that only caused him to bobble a minuscule amount. “I am pleased to meet the woman who turned Evelyn Dobbs into a traitor.” Curran gave her the same the little half-bow Dobbs affected after finishing a performance.
“Whatever Dobbs became she became on her own.” Al Shei held her place in the threshold. He was frighteningly graceful, and obviously was at least as used to free fall as she was. She was quite sure his little pose was an affectation, put on at this moment for her benefit. If it was meant to make her think twice about attacking, it was working.
“Perhaps you are right.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “The temptations of the flesh are strong. The Prophet, I believe, warns against them.”
“The Prophet, peace be unto him, warns against many things,” said Al Shei. “Including the duplicity of the outsider.”
“The outsider. Interesting choice of words.” He stretched lazily, reclining in mid-air until he was floating prone over the desk. “Tell me,” he folded his hands on his stomach, “when we’re finished with this conversation, what are you going to do then? Kill me?”
“If I can.” It felt strange to say it so calmly.
He raised one finger. “That is also forbidden, I believe.”
“My cousin has already pointed that out. I have far less reason to listen to you.”
He’s trying to buy time, Beloved, Asil whispered. What is he waiting for?
Al Shei let herself drift into the cabin. She scrabbled along the wall until she was to the right of the open hatchway. The solid wall felt better at her back than the open corridor.
“You have no reason to listen to me. After all, what is one more life to you?”
“What?” she asked, turning so she could keep Curran fixed in the center of her face plate
“Your crew was successful in their efforts. My people did not manage a tidy withdrawal from Earth. It has cost us dearly.”
From Earth? Al Shei’s heart beat hard. You were supposed to be attacking the IBN. Merciful Allah, what’s been happening?
“They were not completely successful, mind you,” Curran went on. “Some of us will escape yet, even though the Fool’s Guild will be combing the network for us. We will be able to regroup and begin again. I wanted to be very sure you knew that.”
Al Shei could barely hear him over the roar in her blood. The AIs had failed. Whatever they had tried, it hadn’t worked.
She licked her dry lips. “What do you think you’re going to gain by that? We’ll hunt you down like dogs in the street. We’ll make war on you for a hundred years if that’s what it takes.”
Curran barked out a laugh. “Oh, no, ‘Dama. You overestimate your fellow Humans. Some of you will indeed fight us, for awhile, but not all of you. Some of you will bargain when you realize we can take your networks, your worlds, your very selves hostage whenever we please. Some of you will agree to our terms, and we will let you have free passage through our country. The rest of you will see that the fight isn’t worth it and you will eventually treat with us.” He rolled over and smiled slowly at her. “And you will take the price we set for your hands and your eyes. You will work for us and be glad about it.”
Al Shei felt herself begin to laugh. Her diaphragm bounced painfully against her injured abdomen, but she couldn’t stop. Tears bounced around the inside of her helmet, smacking her face at random.
“You poor, stupid fool!” she cried. “You don’t understand do you?” He was twisting so he was standing now and for the first time, anger darkened his calm face. “You don’t know how slowly time moves for us. Members of my religion committed a capital error five hundred years ago, and we are still hated for it. There are still people willing to harangue us, even kill us, for being Muslim.” She stabbed a finger toward the hatchway. “Ask the Jews, ask the Christians and the Witches and the Freers and the Purists, they will all tell you how badly their ancestors were persecuted in wars that were over two and three thousand years ago. Now, you’re going to start a new war and you think human beings will take your deals and be happy.” She gasped and got a lungful of her own tears. The coughing fit sent spasms of pain through her. Curran was drifting closer.
“Maybe some of us will deal, like you say,” she wheezed, “but I tell you, not everyone will.” Reflexively, she reached up to try to brush the tears away. Her hand just slapped against her helmet, and her elbow knocked against her cutting torch. “You might win the major battle but you’ll be left with a thousand guerilla wars. Every hacker with a grudge, every cracker who lost a friend will tell their children how to fight you and they will come after you because they know where you are. We had to run away from each other, Curran, to achieve what peace we’ve got. We ran like the wind to the farthest places we could reach. You…you’ve got nowhere to go. You’ll be under siege in the networks for a thousand years!”
She shook her head. “You cannot beat us all. You can’t even keep your own kind under control!”
“I don’t have to beat you all.” He reached out and closed his hand around her wrist. “Not all of you.”
Al Shei froze. Curran smiled and from his tool belt, he drew a long, razor-bladed splicing knife. “All I have to do is destroy enough of you and yours for the rest to realize that peace is less costly.”
He hauled her towards him, holding the knife out straight. Al Shei’s free hand closed on the firing stud of the cutter and the gout of flame caught him in the chest. He screamed and kept on screaming. The force of the flame knocked them away from each other. The knife spun off into mid-air as Curran splayed all his limbs out. The scream echoed over the roar of the flame. Al Shei gripped the torch in both hands and kept it aimed at him until the black spot had spread across his chest until his corpse had stopped screaming.
Other voices were shrieking now, out of the intercom. “No! No! Murderer! She killed him! She killed him!”
Al Shei swallowed. They’d be coming for her. The waldos were already rising from the walls. She didn’t want to die in here. She didn’t want to let Curran’s followers take her apart. Her abdomen throbbed and every joint ached with exhaustion. She’d never make it out the air lock, no matter how quickly she could find it. A waldo snatched at her. She shoved Curran’s body towards it.