“There were only two?”
Margit clucked reproachfully. “How many people do you put inside a locked vault? Two was overkill, but you see the doors don’t open from the outside. That’s a precaution.” She enunciated the word cheerfully.
Venera slapped Garth lightly; he groaned and mumbled something, batting feebly at her hand.
She looked up at Margit again. “Why come here?”
Margit stood up, dripping. “You know why,” she said, suddenly serious. “For that.” She pointed, straight-armed, at something on the floor.
It was crimson now, but there was no mistaking the cylindrical shape of the key to Candesce. When Venera saw it she gasped and raised the pistol again, cocking it as she tried to haul Garth to his feet with her other hand.
Margit frowned. “Don’t deny me my destiny, Venera. Behold!” She struck one of her poses, throwing her arms out in the spotlight. “You gaze upon the Queen of Candesce!”
“V-Venera?” Garth blinked at her, then focused past her at Margit. “What the—”
“Quickly now, Garth.” She half carried him over to the blood-smeared stones where the key lay. She let go of him and reached to scoop it up, still keeping a bead on Margit.
The botanist simply stood there, awash in light and gore, and watched as Venera and Garth backed away.
She was still watching when they made it to the chamber’s other door and spun the wheel to open it.
16
Venera’s parachute yanked viciously at her shoulders. All the breath drove out of her, the world spun, and then a sublime calm seemed to ease into the world: the savage wind diminished, became gentle, and the roar of gunfire faded. Weight, too, slackened and in moments she found herself come to a stop in dawn-lit air that was crisp but hinted at a warm day to come.
All around her other parachutes had bloomed like night flowers. There were shouts, screaming—but also laughter. Corinne’s people were taking charge; the air below Spyre was their territory. “Catch this rope!” one of them commanded, tossing a length at Venera. She grabbed it, and he began to draw her in.
The knot of people waited a hundred feet from the madly spinning hull of Spyre. Twenty had arrived here in the early morning hours, but more than seventy were leaving. There hadn’t been enough parachutes, but Sacrus had helpfully decorated its corridors with heavy black drapes. Many of these were now held by former prisoners. Having belled with air to brake them, the black squares were now twisting like smoke and were starting to get in the way as people tried to grab one another by wrist, fingertip, or foot.
She pulled herself up Garth’s leg, hooked a hand in his belt, and met him at eye level. “Are you okay?” He still seemed disoriented, and for a moment he just stared back at her.
“Did you come for me?” His voice was hoarse and she didn’t like to think why. There were burn marks on his cheeks and hands and he looked thinner and older than ever.
Venera smoothed the backs of her fingers down the side of his face. “I came for you,” she said, and was surprised to see tears start in his eyes.
“Listen up!” It was the leader of Corinne’s troupe. “We’ve just passed Fin, and I let out the signal flare. In a couple of minutes it’s going to come by again, and they’ll have lowered a net! We’re going to land in that net, all of us. Then we’ll be drawn up into Fin. We need to stick together or people will get left behind.”
“Isn’t Sacrus going to pass us first?” somebody asked.
“Yes. So everybody with a gun get to the top. And unravel those drapes, we can use them to hide behind.”
As Spyre rotated, first Buridan, then Sacrus would go by before Fin came around again. The soldiers of Sacrus had been right on their heels as Venera’s group crowded into the basement. Doubtless they would be bringing heavy machine guns down, or grenades or—it didn’t bear thinking about because there was nothing to be done. For a few seconds at least, Venera and her people were going to be helpless targets.
“Ouch!” said a woman near Venera’s feet. “I—ouch! Hey, ohmigod—” She screamed suddenly, a frantic yelp that grew into a wail.
Venera spun around to look. Dark shapes flickered around the woman’s silhouette, half seen but growing in number. “Piranhawks!” someone shouted.
A second later there were thousands of them, a swirling cloud that completely enveloped the screaming woman. Her cries turned to horrible retching sounds and then stopped. Buzzing wings were everywhere, caressing Venera’s throat and tossing her hair, but so far nothing had bitten her.
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved, and after a minute the cloud of piranhawks began to smear away into the air. They left behind a coiling cloud of black feathers and atomized red, at its heart a horrible thing bereft of blood and flesh.
“Brace yourselves! Here comes the airfall!” Venera looked up in time to see the latticework of girders that supported Buridan Tower flash past. In the next instant a fist of wind hit her.
Garth was nearly torn from her grasp by the pounding air. Two people who had refused to untie themselves from the black drapes were simply blown away, disappearing in moments into a distance blurred with barbed wire and mines. Others simply let go of their neighbors for a second and found themselves being drawn slowly, leisurely away as the airfall passed by and calmer air returned.
“Catch the rope! Catch it!” She watched the lines being tossed and frantic lunges to catch them, then one of the men who’d drifted a few yards away shuddered and spun. Dark lines stood in the air behind him for an instant before snapping and becoming thousands of red droplets. She heard machine-gun fire.
“Sacrus! Return fire!” Everybody opened up on the small knot of pipes and the machine-gun nest as it swept down and at them. Tracer rounds framed and dissected a vision of mauve cloud and amber sunlight. Venera blinked and couldn’t see, waved her pistol hesitantly. Then Sacrus lofted up and away and the firing ceased.
“Get ready!”
Ready? Ready for what—the net caught her limp and unresisting, and that probably saved Venera from a broken neck. As thin cords dug into her face and hands she was hauled into speeding air again, faster and faster until all breath was sucked out of her and spots danced in her eyes. Just as the howl and tearing fingers of the hurricane became intolerable it ceased so abruptly that she just lay for a while, staring at nothing. Gradually, she made out voices, sounds of something heavy being shut as the wind sound cut out. Lantern light glowed below a metal ceiling where shadows of people hove to and fro. She rolled over.
Garth Diamandis was sitting up next to her. He probed at the back of his head carefully, then darted his eyes back and forth at the people who surrounded them. “Where are we?”
“Among friends,” she said. “Safe. At least for now.”
Blood slid down the drain, miniature rivers in the greater flow of water. After all that had happened, Venera was surprised to find that none of it was hers. By rights she should have been riddled with holes last night.
The facilities of Fin were primitive, but the water was wonderfully hot. She dallied in the rusted metal cabinet that stood in for a shower, letting the stuff run over and off her in sheets, holding her face under it. Not thinking, though her hands still shook.
A loud banging startled her, and she almost slipped. Venera flung open the sheet-metal door. “What?”
Bryce stood there. His glower turned to distraction as he took in her naked form. In a moment of reflected vision, she saw his gaze lower, pause, drop, pause again. Then he caught himself and met her eyes. “You’re going to use up all the hot water,” he said in a reasonable tone.