The still, quiet darkness of the hangar was a bit of a shock. The heavy walls muted the roar and thunder of the storm to distant grumbling. Hummingbird switched on his lightwand and made a circuit of the big room. Both Midge s were still in place, wings folded up, engines and systems on standby. The faint smell of idling fuel cells permeated the air. More out of habit than anything else, the nauallis shone his light inside the cockpits, into the cargo compartments, ran his hands across the engines and peered underneath.
And he stopped. His light shifted back, focusing on the forward landing gear of his Midge.
Most of the wheel was invisible, obscured by a dull gray coating – as if the quickcrete floor had grown up to engulf the landing gear. Hummingbird circled around to the front of the ultralight and found all three wheels encased in stone.
"Well," he said, jaw tightening. In the questing gleam of his lightwand, he saw Anderssen's Midge was similarly afflicted. He lowered the light, clicking his teeth together in thought. "I'd better check my boots again."
The funnel cloud broke apart far to the south of the camp, splintering into dozens of smaller vortices and then dissolving into a rush of sand and grit and sandstone fragments. The storm continued to move west, obscuring the plain with towering walls of dust. Clouds thinned, but did not part, over the camp. Stray winds gusted between the buildings, though in comparison to the violence which had just passed relative quiet reigned.
Russovsky stood on the crest of a dune, tangled blond hair whipping around her head, eyes fixed on the low, rounded shapes of the camp buildings. She wore neither mask nor goggles, though the apparatus of a rebreather and recycler clung to her back and chest. The once-glossy black skin of the suit was matted and dull, abraded by the constantly prying wind. Her boots had crumbled long ago, shredded by rocks or eaten away by the tiny, blind maiket.
At a distance, she could feel the presence of the human machine like the warmth of the sun-which-kills, hot and sharp, pressing against her face. The pattern of its movements, the residue of its passage, was clear in the air and upon the ground. There was familiar comfort in the humid smell humanity left behind, the traces of exhalation and sweat mixing in the cold sharp air. Far different from the clean, distinct impressions of the hathol or the furry blaze of the deep-dwelling firten.
A rumbling crack echoed from the north and Russovsky turned her head – a slow, methodical motion – to feel the twisting power in the storm building again. A vortex was building in the upper air, swirling currents rushing into a knot of power building from hundreds of kilometers in every direction. Soon the wave front would smash across the plain, pummeling everything in sight with unbounded rage.
Russovsky felt steadily building disquiet – not at the pending violence, for the pattern of the storm was as familiar to her as the shape of the camp buildings or the spreading stain of the hathol in the dune below her feet – but at a sense of disassociation creeping through ordered, clearly defined thoughts.
Black clouds staining a clear blue sky. Plunging ebon tendrils which flattened and distorted in the summer air, driven by winds at great heights.
Her memories of the-life-before were dying, fading, replaced by confused, diffracted images of things she was sure did not exist in her world, events she had never experienced herself.
A night sky so flushed with stars, night was barely different from day. A bloated, dim sun the color of rust. Obsidian mountains rising to unimaginable heights, rectangular black slabs shimmering against an ochre sky. Fields of silver flowers which constantly turned to face the sun. A sense of impossible age.
Did she see these things herself? Were they dreams? Russovsky examined memories of her life before this life and found them rife with the sensation of dreams and phantoms and half-seen images whelped from confusion or exhaustion. Yet there were no cyclopean towers, no vast cities dreaming under the cruel, brilliant sky of her human memories. These new memories felt strange, foreign.
They felt as things she'd seen with waking eyes.
Disturbed, she turned her attention away from such disorderly matters. The slow, comfortable song of the hathol permeating the dune slope drew her attention. Here was respite from the storm, from the bleak thoughts, from tormenting phantoms, from the nagging pressure of the distant machine. Russovsky knelt, hands flat on the unsteady slope. Her fingers sank into the muted glow of the sand-dwellers. A darker hue spread from her contact, spilling through the delicate threads and spongiform clusters forming the hive. Her own skin became tainted with the reddish radiance of the slow ones.
Russovsky became still, her body locked in position, and the red glow mounted through her arms, into her chest, flooding down into her torso. Even as her body began to crumble, flaking into translucent fragments, skinsuit hardening to stone and dissolving, the darker stain spread across the dune face, rushing through the fragile circulatory system of the hive.
The Russovsky-shape shuddered into a rain of dust, sand and stone fragments. Wind rippled across the debris, anointing the darkened hive with glowing red dust. A second wave of radiance flooded through the hathol, picking out the threads and tendrils in bright new colors.
At the base of the dune, where the dust gathered, where the heart-clusters of the hive dwelt under meters of hard-packed sand, the dark stain pooled, thickened, began to build toward the storm-tossed sky. An outline formed with visible speed, sand and dust and grit knitting into bone, sinew, flesh, blood, the triply-insulated rubbery layer of a skinsuit. In the fullness of time, long, ragged blond hair.
Russovsky flexed her arms, brushing husks of dead hathol away from her fingers. Bare feet broke free of an encasing shell and she turned toward the encampment. The suit was glossy and dark again, made new, refreshed.
The strobe-flare of distant lightning washed over her face. A muttered growl of thunder stirred the air, fanning her hair.
Among the Broken Mountains
Hadeishi clung to a retaining bar, leaning in over the shoulder of the Fleet pilot at the controls of the work platform. Heicho Felix and her assault team were crowded in behind him, bulky dark shapes – combat armor and helmets matte-black to fade into the background, their tools, weapons and ammunition packs slung tightly against their bodies. Crates of hardware filled the rest of the very limited space. The platform slowly drifted forward, barely nudged by a set of four compressed gas jets. Hadeishi watched a passive plot updating on the tiny flight panel.
"Five hundred meters," the pilot's voice was steady. An EVA work platform was not the usual vehicle of choice for the shuttle jockeys, but this job required a steady hand and nerves. Though Master's Mate Helsdon had volunteered, the chu-sa had politely ignored his offer. The machinist was far too valuable to risk on a wild throw like this.
"Four hundred meters."
Hadeishi clicked his throat mike. Though the comm connection to the cruiser was on a hardline, he had no intention of making any more noise than absolutely necessary. A moment later, Kosho's voice was perfectly clear on his earbug.
No sign of activity. The exec sounded entirely at ease. No sign of remotes or drones on picket. You are clear to continue.
Hadeishi clicked twice, indicating he understood.
We have a match on the ship registration number from engine nacelle four. Kosho continued, sounding a little smug. Initial analysis had not found any identifying markings on the visible sections of the refinery. Everyone agreed the miners would probably have replaceable panels for use if they docked in port. The exec had not given up so easily, running all of the visual data through a variety of enhancement procedures. In time, a painted-over number had been found. Ship registry out of Novaya Zemlya Station, Rho Triangulis system. The Turan. A Tyr-class mobile open-space refinery. Master of last record is unknown. Crew registry is unknown.