Well, hell, everything was bringing tears to his eyes right now.
“Last things,” she said. “Think of the Skyphoi as custodians or caretakers. They live a long time by our standards. They aren’t truly individuals, or not all the time, so there’s a lot of continuity over generations. They’re masters of the systems, though. They devise repairs, and other races, with hands, do the dirty work.”
“So that’s us,” Makali said. “Hands.”
“For a vessel like this, yes,” Yvonne said. “The Skyphoi wouldn’t have built anything like Keanu.”
“What do they have?” Zack said.
“A trigger to restart the power core.”
“Won’t that be…very large?” Dale said. “I mean, the power core has got to be massive.”
“It will be powerful but appropriately sized,” Yvonne said. “Our job is to deliver it and activate it.”
“Then what?” Zack said. “The lights come back on, we find our way back to the habitat, great. But the Reivers are still running loose, right?”
“Correct,” Yvonne said. “But with Keanu’s systems up and running again, there will be…sanitary measures.”
Zack recognized the words. Dash had used them to describe the blasted habitat of the crab creatures. Dale caught it, too. “Okay, note to the Skyphoi: We have a say in sanitary measures. No zapping of the human habitat.”
But he seemed too tired to say more, and Zack, realizing there would be more and trickier work after a reboot, felt the same.
He reminded himself of his NASA training. Follow the checklist, one step at a time. The reboot would be a big one.
He had handed Yvonne the Tik-Talk at that point. Then, with some distance yet to travel, seeing that Dale and Makali were sunk in one corner, Rachel and Pav clinging to each other and holding hands, the dog resting its head on its paws, and Yvonne tearfully talking to her father…all of his charges accounted for…Zack allowed himself to close his eyes.
And fell into the deepest sleep he had known in days, since before the arrival of the vesicle Objects…likely before his launch from Earth on Destiny-7.
He was in a crowded bus or a subway car much like this railcar…in his dream, he was aware of the similarity…but pressed up against him was Megan. She looked younger, as she had when they first met and fell in love, long before the astronaut or journalist or parental years.
And they kissed, lips on lips, his hand sliding into her shirt…again, as he and she and they often had, falling into a sweet surging stupor that he wanted to last and last and last and—
He woke. No one was moving except the door. The railcar had stopped. The interior was dark, the only illumination a series of flickering lights from somewhere outside.
And he felt…elated. Not aroused, though there was a bit of that, just happy for once. He was a bit rested, that was good.
It was like the early weeks of his first space station mission, once he’d passed that crucial thirty-day point, becoming not only physically acclimated to life in microgravity, but at home with the long days, the isolation, the small joys of making an experiment work, or just creating a meal.
It was a mind-set suited to life off Earth…life on Keanu, perhaps.
“Everybody out,” he said, “end of the line.”
A pair of Skyphoi were waiting. As Zack and the others approached, one of them extruded a silvery package, which clattered to the ground.
Zack was distracted by the swirling gasbags as they kept shifting positions, and by the look on Rachel’s face, which varied from wonder to terror.
But now he finally focused on the package…a silvery suitcase that looked a lot like the Personal Preference Kits astronauts carried on missions—the containers for personal items, patches, photographs, school pennants.
He wondered why the Skyphoi had used it, but only for a moment. He touched Yvonne’s shoulder and said, quietly, “Is that where they put the nuke on Venture? In one of the PPKs?”
She nodded. “The Skyphoi like to use templates that we would recognize. That way they know what we can carry.”
“I wish they’d picked something else,” he said.
Now one of the Skyphoi started moving away, farther up the tunnel. “Where do you suppose he’s going?” Makali said.
They found an answer with the second Skyphoi, which dropped behind them and, strangely, began to expand, like an inflating balloon. “I think we’re being herded,” Zhao said.
“No,” Makali said. “Defended.”
Zack heard a growling buzz from somewhere down the tunnel…through the semitransparent body of the second Skyphoi, he could see swiftly moving shapes. “What the hell is that?”
“Oh, God, Daddy, it’s a Long Legs.”
Before he could ask for clarification, Pav said, “A type of Reiver.”
“Commander,” Dale said, “we’ve gotta go.”
Zack picked up the case. It was so light he wondered if it actually held anything useful. What did you use to reignite the power core of a starship? Well, Dr. Stewart, that depends on the nature of the core—anti-matter? Or something even more exotic?
He didn’t need to know. He just needed to make it work.
As the second Skyphoi fought its rearguard action, the humans followed the first creature up the tunnel…Zack, Rachel, and Yvonne in the lead, Zhao and Pav and Cowboy right behind…Makali and Dale at the rear.
“So the plan,” Zack said, huffing and puffing, “is this: Enter the core, place the unit within, get out. How long do I have?”
“I don’t know,” Yvonne said. “I really, really wish I could tell you, but I’m out of info.” She nodded at the floating Skyphoi. “They control the ignition. They’ll know.”
Zack wanted to scream with laughter. All the decisions he had made, from the crazy gravity gauge trick on Brahma to throwing the rover off the side of Vesuvius Vent, to confronting the first Architect to going overland from the shattered Beehive to the Sentry habitat…each one had been his to make, his to live with.
Now he was a courier for implacable, uncommunicative, unknowable aliens.
And not only his life, but the lives of every human on Keanu—and very possibly the lives of the entire human race—depended on them.
There was a universal lesson in that somewhere. But he was too tired and frustrated to appreciate it.
The Skyphoi brought them to a side shaft and a Membrane. “This is the core?” Pav said.
“Might be the entrance to another shaft,” Dale said. He turned to Zack. “Okay, Commander, hand it over.”
“It’s my job, Dale.”
Dale nodded toward Rachel. “Your daughter disagrees.”
“He’s right, Daddy,” Rachel said. “Let someone else do this. Please!”
Zack looked at her dirty, pretty, exhausted, distraught face, seeing traces of her mother. “I’d draw straws, but we don’t have any,” he said. That wasn’t enough, for either of them.
He took his daughter’s hand and led her away, to where they were directly under the floating, flashing Skyphoi…the closest thing to a zone of privacy. “I love you, Rachel—”
“Don’t say that! It means you think you’re never going to see me again.”
“I am going to see you again. In a few minutes, the moment I drop this thing off.”
“I’m afraid,” she said. “Mom went away, then she came back, then…” She collapsed against him, sobbing.
He couldn’t allow himself to do the same. Be a father. Be a leader.
“Look, honey, baby girl.” He kissed her. “Look!” He finally got her attention. “We’re all…information. That’s what the universe is. And it never really dies, okay? But it has to keep changing. That’s why the Reivers are bad—they’re frozen, they don’t get worse and they never get better. We may have to die or go away or change state to get better.”
“I hate that.”
“Don’t hate it. It’s the most miraculous thing humans have ever discovered.”
Saying it aloud, he almost convinced himself. But all around them, the air began to grow stagnant. Temperatures were dropping.