The three-way reunion between Zack and Rachel and Yvonne had settled down to the point where Makali felt she and Dale could join in. Rachel did the introductions, ending with the giant creature that could have knocked Dash the Sentry over: “This is the Architect.”
“You mean, an Architect,” Zack said.
“Aren’t they the same?” Rachel said. Zack’s tired nod confirmed it.
Makali noted the Destiny commander’s body language: tense and wary. He had one hand on Rachel’s shoulder, the other on Yvonne’s. Now he subtly pushed his former crew member forward. “Does he remember me?”
“Yes,” Yvonne said.
“And my wife?” Zack said.
“Yes.”
“Why did she die again? Can he answer that?”
“I can,” Yvonne said. “Because the stress of being reborn, becoming a Revenant, is so great that adult bodies often don’t last long. They are created to serve as bridges between two races…once communion and understanding is established, they begin to fail.” A look passed between Yvonne and Zack, who was about to offer consolation or commiseration, Makali felt. But Yvonne stopped him. “Information persists,” she said. “Take that for what it’s worth…. If you’re asking me, I don’t know that I’d want to go through this again…. Remember what I’m looking forward to: dying for the second time. It wasn’t that much fun the first time through.”
“It seems really mean,” Rachel said.
“Maybe,” Yvonne said. “But I don’t think they know. Or care.” She considered it further. “They’re really not like us.”
Makali looked at Dale, who simply stared at the hard-packed ground. She felt that she was eavesdropping on a moment of great intimacy, like a confession to a priest. Of course, there was no intimacy. There were other creatures and other activities all around them.
But the idea of confession suddenly caused her to wonder, perhaps stupidly, what a priest would make of this Revenant business, or how certain knowledge of life after death would affect religious thought—
At that moment the power died again, the thrum of the railcar—which Makali had been hearing without recognizing the source—died, and so did the lighting in the tunnel.
The only illumination was from the three Skyphoi, lit up like lanterns with their own power…and now showing impressive collections of internal organs.
Before Makali could make sense of what she was seeing, Dash joined them, the Sentry almost a ghostly voice in the dark. It said, “If my people emerge and find us, there will be casualties.” It wasn’t clear to Makali whether Dash was addressing the Architect or Zack.
“More casualties, you mean,” Dale said. “Who killed Valya?”
“The Skyphoi have a history of conflict,” the Sentry said.
“Not with us,” Dale said.
“The Skyphoi detected me,” Dash said, “and judged me to be hostile. You were with me.”
“There’s no point to a postmortem now,” Zack said. “The question remains: How do we get to the vesicle?” He turned to the Architect. “That’s the mission right now, isn’t it? For everyone? Get to the vesicle before these Reivers do?”
“And stop the Reiver infection,” Yvonne said.
Makali was torn between her professional desire to observe the Architect and these Skyphoi—and the by-now-familiar Sentry in its interactions with the other aliens—and to simply help Zack and get on with the work.
She wanted to go home. During their few free moments in the march across the blasted habitat, Zack had begun to enthuse about the possibilities. “You guys rode a vesicle here. There’s no reason we can’t ride a vesicle back to Earth.”
But that had been an hour ago, before Valya was killed. Before this…insane rendezvous.
The various parties quickly established that the vesicle pod was adjacent to, but on the other side of, the Skyphoi habitat. “Can we go through?” Zack asked.
“No,” Yvonne said, channeling the Architect. “Too dangerous for you.”
“How come these guys can come into our habitat, but we can’t handle theirs?” Dale said. “The atmospheres have to be pretty good matches.”
“There’s no surface,” Yvonne said.
“There’s got to be a surface of some kind!”
“I think what she means,” Zack said, “is that the Skyphoi are creatures of the air…their habitat is filled with oxygen and other elements, but is really a giant cylinder.”
“Imagine the human habitat with no floor,” Makali said.
“It would be like trying to walk across the Grand Canyon,” Yvonne said, speaking more for herself, Makali realized. “You could do it, but it would take you a long time. And the Skyphoi aren’t strong enough to carry you.
“We have to use the transports.” She nodded at the waiting railcar farther down the tunnel.
Now Zhao pointed to the Skyphoi. “It’s their habitat. Can they get there more quickly?”
“Of course,” Yvonne said. “But they will be unable to do much if they do reach the vesicle. The Reivers have already…evolved ways to kill the Skyphoi.”
Even now one of the Skyphoi, its color a sickly pink, had to slide back through the Membrane.
“Then what fucking use are they?” Dale Scott muttered. Makali thought she was the only one who heard him, but apparently the Architect had better ears than the humans.
“You should hope that you never need to know,” Yvonne said.
“Assuming we reach the vesicle in time,” Zack said, “we’re still facing these Reivers. We don’t even know what they look like, much less how to fight them.”
Zhao and Pav and Yvonne explained. The thought of microscopic nanotemplates was bad enough; Makali had spent much of her life in tropical or subtropical regions. The bugs in Houston annoyed her, especially when she stepped on them barefoot.
The idea of bugs that were not only intelligent as a group, but capable of assembling themselves into creatures on any scale…
“They’re vulnerable to heat,” Yvonne said. “And energy, though only in high, concentrated doses. The best weapon is speed. We have to beat them to the vesicle.”
With no further discussion, the group—including the Architect—turned as one and headed directly for the railcar. Only Dash seemed to lag, a fact Dale Scott commemorated by saying, “Move it or lose it, big boy.”
The Sentry gave no sign that it heard or understood.
Before they reached the railcar, Makali heard Rachel say to Zack, “Daddy, what if the power goes out while we’re on the way?”
Makali didn’t hear Zack’s answer. Was he still feeling like the glass was half full? She hoped so, for everyone’s sake.
Makali had judged the railcar to be far larger than needed, the size of a semitrailer. But with the entire group crammed into it—Zack holding Rachel by the hand, Zhao, Pav, the dog, Dale, and Makali, along with the Architect and the Sentry—Makali felt as though she were back in Bangalore, crammed into public transport.
It was an impression rather than a fact; the Architect placed itself at one end of the car, the humans clustered in the middle, while Dash the Sentry hunkered at the other end, its many arms busy with objects it was removing from its vest.
The first motion was a violent lurch. “Wow,” Zack said, “just like liftoff!”
Makali asked Zhao, “Is that normal?”
“No,” he said.
“Should I be worried?”
The Chinese spy smiled. “If it will make dying easier.”
Makali couldn’t help asking, “What makes this thing go? Is it electric?”
“Driven by super-dense mass,” Zhao said. “Cat’s-eyes, like really, really tiny marbles.”
“But electricity must drive them,” she said, happy to be thinking about alien transport technology rather than improbable and likely non-existent weapons.
“Yes,” Yvonne said, “the warship contains a network of power and fluid conduits.”
“Which means this whole system is subject to blackout?”
“There are backup systems,” Yvonne said, but only that much. Her sudden shifts between disinterest and engagement were starting to bother Makali.