“Faster!” Syn shouted.
Blip echoed her command, “Faster!”
The bots ahead responded by moving faster. Soon, they had ventured through the tunnel and exited out into the other gate room. Her gate room. Her Disc. Her side of the mirror.
Syn instinctively took a deep breath. She was at home.
The bots filled the space, but their numbers seemed fewer in the cavernous expanse without the debris of the other side. This space was hollow in comparison.
Pigeon muttered, “She’s not here.”
Syn scanned the room. There was no sign of Neci. A few drops of blood floated ahead of them, but the trail ended at the other side of the massive open space. “Where’d she go?”
“I’ll talk to Olorun,” Blip interrupted as he raced ahead to the bridge door.
“She won’t listen to you,” the Barlgharel said.
Blip stopped hard and turned around. “How do you know that?” he chirped, offended at this intrusion. “And who are you?”
Syn interjected, “This is the Barlgharel.”
“What the hell is that?” Blip said.
Syn blinked, startled at the uncharacteristic language.
“You’re attempting to break away the Disc,” the Barlgharel said, “We can get her to understand.”
Blip didn’t answer for a moment. Then he hissed, “She’s insane. She’s not like us.”
Syn noticed Blip had included the other bots standing there. Had he been able to accept them as at least similar to him?
“You said she wasn’t stupid,” Syn insisted.
Around them, various bots of the Ecology were assembling. More and more continued to pour out of the cargo passage that Blip had led them through.
“How do you know about Olorun?” Blip insisted, directing his gaze at the Barlgharel.
The Barlgharel, its head turned to look down on Syn, said, “She spoke to me, the first of many.”
“What does that mean? Speak normally,” Blip commanded and without waiting for an answer, he turned to Syn and said, “I’m going to Olorun.”
Barlgharel provided no indication of thought or intent. Syn nodded her head.
Blip raced off toward the bridge entrance above them.
When he was nearly at the entrance, the Barlgharel said, “He’ll be back. Then she’ll want you.”
Syn looked aghast at the Barlgharel’s statement. “What… What does she want with me?”
The Barlgharel straightened out and then swam a few feet away, toward the center of the gate room. “I do not know. I do know she likes you.”
“Smoke and mirrors,” Pigeon said. She had stayed near Syn, always in the girl’s shadow.
Her words echoed in the hall. This side of the gate was so empty.
Syn became aware of the audience forming around her. When they had first entered, the hundreds of bots were clustered in smaller groups. Now, they aligned themselves in a circle, in orbit around Syn, the center of attention of hundreds of the Ecology. They floated in the empty space around her. She was the sun, and they were her planets. Amongst them, she spied the familiar forms of Huck, Bear, Arquella, and several other bots she had repaired and many more she had talked to during her stay with them.
The Barlgharel whispered, “As she predicted.”
This broke her trance. “Who said?”
“Olorun,” came the answer. But it wasn’t the Barlgharel. Far behind, Blip was streaming closer.
“What?” Syn asked.
“He’s right,” Blip said. She could see it pained him to say that. He didn’t know the Barlgharel, and there was no motivation for jealousy. “She wants him and then you.”
The gate room shook again as the other Disc buckled and the sound reverberated like being in a tin can.
“Go,” Blip said.
42
OLORUN
“Come to me, you young ones. Beings such as you once stepped from my oceans. They have long since left but I am still here, waiting. My forests wait for your children to run barefoot through them. My clouds wait for your eyes to marvel at them. Swim in my seas. Bring life to my ancient shell. Come.”
The bridge lit up in a thousand shades of blue as Syn entered. A dozen screens displayed the various elements of the ship. Syn scanned them, familiar with the readouts.
A new one caught her eye. To the right, in the third bay up, was an overview of the entire ship. This time, the design showed two Discs. Along the outer edge, live camera feeds inside the second Disc were displayed. The great rip was visible, as were the damaged sunstrips. The Disc poured its atmosphere out into the cold air while its off-balance weight pulled at the Jacob mountings along the needle, forcing the axis point to wobble in its trajectory.
“Oh,” Syn said, holding up a hand to the screen. Her fingers dipped into the light projection, and she ran her fingers through the display. The display of the ship moved as she pushed and prodded the image. She spun the image around, looking at the damage from every side. The Disc still rotated, and the tear was widening, forcing the Disc off-balance.
Blip floated behind her. In the quiet, he said, “I didn’t realize how much was being seen.”
“How do we talk to it… her?” Syn asked.
“You wait.”
“I don’t have time to wait,” Syn said, floating further ahead to peer out the main windows at the starfield. “We don’t have time.”
The Barlgharel spoke from near the hatch. “Time is a choice.” He had followed them up.
“That makes no sense,” Blip said.
“Olorun!” Syn yelled, startling Blip.
There was no answer.
Syn tried again, “Olorun! I know you’re listening!”
“I wonder if she knows we’re here,” Blip said. “She gets distracted sometimes.”
“Oh, please be quiet, little egg.” The voice was feminine but contained a deep rasp to it. There was something both warming and frightening in its tone.
“Olorun?” Blip said.
“Hush means hush,” the voice said, “Keep talking and I’ll finish cracking you open.”
Blip nodded at Syn, his movements still staggered from his fight with Taji.
After a moment, Syn stepped forward and stared upwards and finally said, “I’m Syn—”
“I know who you are, small one. I’ve been keeping my eye on you for a very, very long time.”
“Olorun?” Syn asked.
“Ya, sure. That’ll do. For now. Until we get to know each other.”
Syn glanced at the image on the display. “We need your help.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“What’s another?” Syn’s voice was still quiet, still tame. She was guarded with every word.
Olorun’s voice grew bright, and the lights across the bridge glowed brighter, casting a brilliant azure haze on everything. “Oh, I like you. Determined. Another way of looking at things—” As she paused, the screens to Syn’s right flickered, and images of a young Syn waking up in the crèche appeared. Another shot showed her meeting Blip, reaching out to touch his nose with her finger. There was an image of Syn and Blip entering the first Disc. There was also a shot of Syn descending toward the dark Disc just days ago. Olorun continued, “Another way to look at it is I’ve needed your help.”
The floor shook, and Syn put a hand out to steady herself on the nearest chair. When she regained her balance, she spoke, her voice more determined. “We need your help. The Disc—”
“Are you sure?”
“What?”
“Your plan. Are you sure about it?”
“Yes. I think so. And it was Neci’s plan.”
“Letting loose the other Disc?”