Yes, she thought. Things can always get worse.
“There’s more, Commander,” said Ra-Havreii. Of course there was. “While time moves as we expect inside the tesseract, outside it is completely random. It is my suspicion that each time the network destabilizes, we appear in the Orishan sky of the past and inspire the same effects or worse on the planet up there just as its proximity creates the same effects here. When the Veil fails completely, when the planet reenters normal space, both versions of Orisha will be destroyed.”
“I’m sorry,” said Troi. “You said whenit fails.”
“Yes,” said Ra-Havreii.
“Not ‘if.’ ”
“Correct,” said the engineer. “The network will fail eventually. That is guaranteed. It’s over a century old, and it’s been taking too much punishment from overuse.”
“We can keep it stable for a little while,” said Modan. “But the Veil will fail. Soon.”
“So we’re back to where we started,” said Vale. “Turn the damned thing off.”
“There may be a way to implement a controlled step-down of the individual Spires,” said Ra-Havreii, suddenly thoughtful.
“Yes!” said Modan, jumping on. It was odd watching her light up the way Jaza would have over concepts she wouldn’t have understood only days ago. “We remove the components and the tesserect just fades away. We should reenter normal space-time in Orisha’s present.”
“With no previous version of itself blocking reentry, everything should be fine,” said Ra-Havreii.
“ Shouldbe isn’t willbe,” said Vale. “Tampering with this could make things worse, couldn’t it?”
“It’s the best we can do, I’m afraid, Commander,” he said. “It’s your decision, of course, but you had better make it quickly.”
As if to punctuate Ra-Havreii’s words, the ground beneath them seized ever so slightly and there was a spark of the rainbow lightning in the distance.
“All right,” said Vale. “What do you need to get this done?”
Keru was up and looking like his old self when the three women returned to the shuttle. He had stripped off his torn garments and replaced them with the same gray and white undermesh that Modan wore.
As the ensign rummaged for the tools Ra-Havreii had requested, Vale brought Keru up to speed.
“So,” he said when she was done. “We’re in it. Again.”
“Looks that way,” she said.
“All right,” he said, sucking it up. “What are your orders, Commander?”
“Just keep an eye on her for now,” said Vale, indicating A’yujae’Tak, still trapped in her corner of the hold. The Orishan was also up again, lucid and watching their every move. She had, apparently, only tested the force field once before settling back on her haunches to watch and wait.
“No worries,” said the big Trill. “She’s been quiet the whole time.”
“Good,” said Vale, moving toward their prisoner. “Maybe she’s calm enough to listen.”
A’yujae’Tak shifted her position slightly when Vale drew near. Two of her arms extended to the floor while the higher ones flexed outward like some raptor bird testing its wings. It was easy to see that she meant to pounce on her captor the instant the shield went down. Ignoring the threatening pose, Vale dropped down to one knee to meet the alien’s gaze face-to-face.
“Listen,” she said. “I’m sorry about all this. I can let you out of there if you promise not to attack any of us.”
“You should have killed me,” said A’yujae’Tak.
“We don’t do that,” said Vale. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“I will kill you,” said the prisoner. “For what you have done to us, I will murder you all.”
“We’re trying to help you,” said Vale. “This Veil network of yours is the thing you want to kill.”
“Do not touch the Veil!” yelled A’yujae’Tak, lunging at Vale so quickly she barely had time to register the movement. “You will leave us naked before Erykon! Do you mean to kill us all?”
“As I said,” said Vale, rising. “We’re trying to help.”
“I’m ready, Chris,” said Modan, emerging from one of the lockers with a small satchel full of the necessary tools.
“Commander,”said Vale, sharply enough for Keru to raise an eyebrow. Troi looked about to intervene, but a look from Vale told her to save it for later. “Commander Vale, Ensign. Not Chris. My friends call me that. Understand?”
“Yes, Commander,” said Modan stiffly. “I understand.”
Just as Modan transported back to the surface, another quake rippled through the ground. From their vantage they could actually see the soil liquefying, spewing giant shards of the blue crystals into the air like missiles while conversely sucking vast tracts of the jungle down to oblivion.
“It’s one of their cities,” Troi said to Vale. “The quake is causing a cave-in. They’re dying, Christine. Thousands of them.”
“Murderers,” screamed A’yujae’Tak, lunging at the force field again and again. “This is your doing! Erykon will destroy us all!”
“Not if I can bloody help it,” said Vale. “Shuttle to Ra-Havreii.”
“Hands full right now, Commander,”said the engineer’s voice. “ What is it?”
“Are you still all right there?” she said.
“We’re fine,”he said, clearly through his obviously clenched teeth. “Stop talking to me and let us work.”
She switched off and told Keru to join her on the flight deck. She had been feeling useless with all the technical mumbo jumbo. The destruction of the Orishan city was something she might actually be able to handle on her own.
They would have found it even without the scanners. A great canyon was in the process of ripping itself open in the ground some fifty kilometers from the Spire. The noise alone was excruciatingly loud. Each time the earth split, it was as if an impossibly large fist were being smashed into an infinite number of cymbals and drums.
Great jets of combustible gas shot up from smaller cracks that opened near the new canyon, some igniting when they were struck by one of the bolts of multicolored lightning. There was smoke everywhere, and above them, the sky, once again, seemed to burn.
Vale could only imagine what the primitive Orishans had thought the first time their god had appeared in the sky. Without a framework for understanding what was killing them, it was small wonder that they learned quickly to fear Erykon’s wrath.
As Keru deftly avoided a sudden burst of flaming gas, Vale told him to get lower. The clouds of dust rising up from the upheaval below, coupled with the smoke from the burning jungle, made targeting whatever survivors there might be impossible. If she was going to salvage any of this, she needed a closer look.
“It’s going to be bumpy,” he told her as he set the Ellingtonin a wide, downward-looping arc. “You’d better strap in.” She did as he asked quickly, hollering for Troi to do the same below.
There was one harrowing moment when the black plume of smoke from one of the burning geysers enveloped them, completely stealing their view of the world outside. To his credit, Keru only grunted and altered the descent trajectory by a few points.
They emerged from the black fog almost instantly and much closer to the trouble below. When her eyes were able to focus on the dying Orishan city, Vale almost wished she’d stayed behind with Ra-Havreii.
From the air it bore a horrible resemblance to the maw of the creature that had tried to make a meal of Vale two days before. Instead of row after row of teeth, however, this opening was ringed with giant structures, buildings of some sort, most of which now either tottered at hellishly odd angles or, worse, had already slid down into the sinkhole at the center of the growing abyss.