Chan started forward Mondrian was beginning to pull free, clambering to his feet.
And so, amazingly, was Godiva Lomberd. She held her hand to her back, where bloodied internal organs showed at the gaping exit wound, and she weaved where she stood. But still she began to move forward, to where Luther Brachis lay.
“Godiva Lomberd, do not try to lift him. That effort will kill you.” It was Leah’s warning voice. But Godiva was bending and putting her arms around Brachis, while blood streamed down her dress.
She shook her blond head. “We do not die easily, my kind. Not even … of sorrow.” Already she was standing again, Luther cradled to her chest while one hand supported the back of his shattered head.
Then she was hurrying out of the quarantine chamber.
Chan started after her — and realized that while they had all watched Godiva, Esro Mondrian was vanishing through the other door.
“Follow him!” said Leah’s voice. “With Brachis gone, Mondrian alone knows the Link sequence to take this ship back to Sol.”
Chan hesitated. Follow Mondrian — but Nimrod was still united, Angel was too slow, Shikari was disassembled. “S’greela!” Chan called to the Pipe-Rilla. “Come on. It’s up to the two of us.”
He ran out of the quarantine chamber, and at once found himself in the labyrinth of the Q-ship interior.
“Which way?” asked S’greela. She was bounding along at his side.
Chan had no idea. Before he could speak, a long tendril of Tinker components came streaming into the corridor. “Follow Ishmael,” called Leah’s muffled voice from far behind.
Nimrod at least must have some idea of where Mondrian was going, Chan and S’greela ran along behind the moving Tinker column, down one corridor and along up two short flights of stairs.
“The main Q-ship control room,” cried S’greela. She was ahead of Chan. “He is here.”
Chan ran through to join her. Mondrian was at a main panel, throwing switches. As Chan and S’greela entered, he spun around to face them.
“Get away from me, or we all die. I have initiated a Q-ship destruct sequence, and I alone can stop it. You have three minutes to surrender and place yourselves in sealed quarantine chambers.”
“Stay back,” cried S’greela. “He means it, he will do it. We must do as he says.”
“Wait!” called a voice from far along the corridor. It was Angel, creeping along as fast as the root system would permit.
“S’greela, you have to help Angel.” But before Chan’s command could be carried out, a blizzard of Tinker components appeared in the corridor. They crowded to lift and push Angel towards the control room.
When Angel reached the threshold, part of the swarm at once flew across to cluster thickly on Mondrian. Another group flew to settle on Chan and S’greela.
“Quickly!”
Chan did not know who had cried out. Already the mentality was awakening, faster than ever before. Chan felt Almas reaching out toward Mondrian, and then the shock of contact. CAN YOU REACH HIM? It was Nimrod, faint and far-off, connecting in through the Ishmael/Shikari link.
WE ARE TRYING. There was a long moment of probing, as the mentality sought to feel into a resisting mind. WE CANNOT.
Chan felt the full impact of that surprise and alarm. Mondrian’s mind had risen powerfully against them, stronger than Almas had believed possible. The mind pool was recoiling from the intensity of the emotion that it had encountered.
WE CANNOT BRING HIM TO UNION. The news flowed back to Nimrod. THERE IS A BLOCK. IMMOVABLE, PERMANENT, DEEP-SEATED.
CAN YOU BYPASS IT, AND REACH THE ABORT PATTERN FOR Q-SHIP DESTRUCTION? Nimrod’s message carried its overtones. The other mentality was moving towards the control room, but in the united form its pace was too slow.
IT WOULD DESTROY HIM. IT IS BURIED BENEATH ALL ACCESSIBLE LEVELS.
Now S’greela and Chan had joined Shikari to hold Mondrian. He did not resist physically, but his mind boiled and burned, rejecting all contact with the mentality. Almas tried again along a new path. Chan felt the union’s repugnance as it came to the seething undercurrent of Mondrian’s mind.
ONE MINUTE, said Nimrod. YOU MUST FIND THE ABORT PATTERN FOR Q-SHIP DESTRUCTION.
WE ARE STILL TRYING. IT CANNOT BE REACHED.
“Should we destroy Mondrian?” That was Chan, struggling to remain within the mentality, and yet provide an individual input to the mind pool. “His destruction might yield the abort pattern.”
NO — NO — NO. The gale of disapproval almost swept Chan away. He felt the shocked reaction from the other team members, as he struggled to pull back farther from the mentality.
He faced a terrible choice. He needed the mind pool to help him, at the same time as he needed to act independently from it. Chan channeled his energy and reached deeper, burrowing his way into a matrix of emotion that struggled furiously to resist him.
He made no progress. Mondrian would not yield.
Chan thrust about in uncontrolled surges, and at last felt the first random contact with the memory block. It was like a dark, confined presence in Mondrian’s brain, sealed off from everything around it. Chan pushed deeper, using the full power of the whole mind pool. He knew what he had to do. But could he bring himself to do it, against the resistance of all the others?
Now. He used the edge of his own worst memories to cut into the naked, delicate fiber of Mondrian’s mind. The darkness resisted for one more moment, then shivered to pieces.
The block was gone. But as Almas reached past Chan to pick up the abort command and Mattin Link sequence from Mondrian’s mind, Chan himself was caught in a mental explosion. Mondrian had been forced to look at the horror of his own distant past. The scream of pain and mental anguish blew Chan out of the tortured brain and far away into a sea of fading consciousness.
The mentality caught Chan and cradled him. But Mondrian’s intellect was flickering and dimming, a quenched ember of mind that sank rapidly to nothing.
“Safe. We are safe,” said Chan.
“Death. We are Death,” said an echo. Then Chan was sinking into a maelstrom of bottomless terror, knowing it was his terror, knowing it was only the faintest shadow of what he had found inside Esro Mondrian.
“Death. Death?” said the echo, closer and louder.
But now it could not touch him. For at last Chan had let go, and been sucked all the way into the whirlpool.
Chapter 40
The transition came at the hundred and twentieth level of the warrens, and it came suddenly. Above that point were the signs of success: fashionable apartments, bright lights, beautiful people, high rents, and easy access to the link points. Below Level 120 a traveller found only dark hell-holes, fugitives, and failure.
Chan approached the apartment cautiously, walking light-footed along the trash-filled corridor with its grimy walls and solid grey doors. Reaching his destination, he placed his hand on the ID unit and pressed. The light glowed. He was allowed through into the coffin-like outer nail and stood there, patiently waiting.
It took a long time. The woman who opened the inner door was tall and stooped, with long, unkempt hair. She peered out into the tiny dim-lit hall and stared at Chan with tired, bleary eyes.
He nodded. “It’s me, Tatty. May I come in?”
She did not speak, but she turned and shuffled through into the apartment. Following her, Chan saw the purple of Paradox shots along both of her arms. They went into a tiny living-room, where Chan sat down uninvited on a hard chair and stared around him. The place was a clutter of clothes, dishes, and papers, the result of many weeks of casual living with no attempt to clean.