This Alien Shore (71 page)

I don't want to hear this, she thinks.

An inner voice whispers:
You must.

“You see, there's a condition which allows human beings to see things in the ainniq
...
but it destroys their souls otherwise. You know what it feels like, don't you? I know that you do, because that experience was the trigger for this dreamscape. You carry the seeds of that sickness inside you, and I'd hoped they would never come to the surface... but if you're running this program, then the process has started.
”

dreams, the recurring image of the lost one crying in terror,
of running to find him... was he ... oh, my God...

“I see you understand. ”

She lowers her face into her hands, trembling. She's remembering what happened in the gallery, how terrified she was then that the Others would take control of her body, how she fought to keep it from happening... if that was just a reflection of the crying one's madness, what would happen if
it
were fully unleashed? She remembers the struggle she had with Derik over the simple destruction of a headset, how hard it had been to regain control of her flesh when another had it, even with all the Others helping her. What would happen if he took control?

The sky is nearly black now, and flickers of light flash ominously across the heavens. She tries to find her voice, tries to force words out past the lump of fear that's formed in her throat
—

—
And a scream splits the darkness. A sharp, shrill sound that cuts through the night, making the very substance of the dreamscape shiver. For a split second the image of her tutor disappears, then it returns. What—?

DREAMSCAPE ABORT

 

WELLSEEKER OVERRIDE

 

THETA SEQUENCE ABORT

WELLSEEKER OVERRIDE

 

ESTABLISHING BETA STAGE CONSCIOUSNESS

 

Awake.

She was awake.

It took her a moment to get her bearings. It took her another moment to realize that although she was still in the passenger chamber of the outship, she was now the only one there. Phoenix was gone, and the straps he had worn now hung limply down by the sides of his chair where he had apparently dropped them.

Before she could move—or even think—there was another scream, a sharp and tortured sound that ended abruptly.

It was real.

With shaking hands she unhooked her own restraining straps and got up quickly. Was the ship in the ainniq yet? There were no windows in the passenger compartment, no way to tell. She hesitated for a second and then started heading toward the direction the scream had come from. She could hear voices coming from there, but she couldn't make out the words. Was Phoenix there, were the Guerans? What was wrong?

The door of the bridge was open, and as she came up, she could see people inside. Masada was seated at the pilot's console, staring at it with an intensity which hinted at volumes of data being processed though his headset. Phoenix had just knelt down on the floor beside what looked like a Gueran body, with two guards behind him. On the other side of the body was the inpilot, and he was running some sort of scanning device over it. The skin beneath the kaja paint of the fallen man was a chalky gray.

“I can try to take control of his wellseekers,” Phoenix was saying. “That might work.”

“Too late.” The pilot shook his head grimly. “He's gone.” Overhead on the main viewscreen a slender vein of light flickered against an ebony starscape. It looked like the ainniq she had seen near Earth, but much closer and much brighter. From here she could see that light flickered up and down the length of the fault in spurts, like the lightning in her dreamscape. Colors sputtered along its length in seemingly random patterns, sparkling as they collided with one another. It was strange and very beautiful ... and under the circumstances, not a little threatening.

Finally she dared to ask, “What's going on?”

As soon as he realized she was there, Phoenix rose up and went to her. His expression was strained. “Outpilot's dead,” he said. He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed, as much for his own reassurance, it seemed, as for anything she needed. She could feel him trembling slightly. “So we are in very deep shit right now.”

“I'd call that an understatement.” The inpilot grunted. “It's sabotage, and a damn good job, too. We were hit hard and clean, no warning. The outpilot went down as soon as he hooked up. Navigation's locked out, I can't access a single control. Dr. Masada's trying to reroute the signal so that we can at least maneuver.”

Masada reached out to the control panel before him and pressed something. A moment later he cursed softly. “No. That's locked up, too.”

Jamisia could see the fear in the pilot's eyes. “You have to get the helm back before we hit the ainniq.”

She could see that the ainniq was closer now; it was possible to see veils of light shimmering about its edges, bleeding out into the black of space. They were heading straight toward it.

Masada muttered. “Every pathway is blocked.”

“Keep trying,” the inpilot ordered. He sat down before the controls and tried a few, then cursed as they failed to respond properly. “Less than a minute left.”

“To what?” Jamisia whispered.

Phoenix nodded upward toward the viewscreen, where the ainniq was rapidly growing larger. “Course was set already. If Dr. Masada can't bypass the damaged navigational programs, we're going in.”

“Without an outpilot,” one of the guards added. She could hear the fear in his voice.

It was said to be the worst death imaginable, to be eaten by the sana.

THIRTY SECONDS TO IMMERSION, the bridge announced.

“All right,” Masada muttered. His attention was now wholly fixed on the crippled programs feeding into his head, and he was clearly making comments to himself, not to them. “There's the problem.”

Sabotage. To kill her, or Masada, or Phoenix? Or all three? What a clean death it would seem from the outside, with no evidence that anything had gone wrong. A ship had gone into the ainniq. It never came out. Such things happened.

TWENTY SECONDS TO IMMERSION.

Computer sabotage. Neat and clean. They had probably shut down communications as well. The ship would go down without so much as a ripple in the outernet. No one would ever know what had happened.

“Dr. Masada.” The pilot's voice was strained. “I need helm control
before
immersion.”

“If you keep interrupting my concentration,” came the answer, “you will have nothing.”

The viewscreen was blazing with light now, the darkness of surrounding space withdrawn to the farthest edges of the display. In the midst of that brightness shadows shimmered and swayed, hinting at forms unseen, dangers unnamed.

“Can I help?” Phoenix offered.

Masada shook his head sharply. “It's Guild code. I can't let you have access to that.”

“Even if that means we all die?”

TEN SECONDS TO IMMERSION

“Don't be foolish. Not even you can hack a foreign system in ten seconds.” He shook his head in frustration. “Whoever did this knew his stuff. He also anticipated everything I would try to do to reestablish control. Damn ...”

The viewscreen was filled with writhing colors, shapes and streamers and twisting shadows that moved too quickly to follow. Closer, it was coming closer—

“I need the helm!” the inpilot cried. Jamisia could hear the raw panic in his voice as the ainniq moved forward to swallow them whole.

IMMERSION, the bridge announced.

A full set of viewscreens blazed to sudden life around them, circling the bridge with its display, 360 degrees of blazing light, surrounding them with the nightmare vision. Was it Jamisia' imagination, or could she sense something out there, bright and hungry and winging its way toward the crippled ship? She was reminded of the queasy feeling she'd had while staring at Kent's paintings; looking at the ainniq was like that, but a thousand times worse. Was this what he'd been trying to paint?

It was beautiful. It was horrible. It was chaos, utter chaos, and the mind couldn't even focus on it without feeling the boundaries of sanity give way. She turned and looked at the rear viewscreens, the space that was presumably behind them. There was no sign of the way they had come, or anything that might mark the way out. What landmarks could exist in such a place, where everything was in constant flux? They were lost, truly lost. And it was only a question of time, she knew, before one of the predators of this realm spotted them. Maybe only seconds.

You could find the way out,
an inner voice whispered.

A looming shadow began to move toward the ship. The inpilot saw it and cringed back in his seat. “Oh, Jesus.” Phoenix's arm tightened around Jamisia as the thing drew closer, and she could feel her own heart pounding in fear. Her wellseeker posted several warnings, and she finally just shut it down. What did it matter how fast her heart was beating, when her soul was about to be ripped from her body?

The darkness enveloped the ship and for a moment all the screens were flooded with blood-red light ... then it passed over them, or through them, and was absorbed into the mad skyscape beyond.

Not a dragon. Not a real one. Not anything.

No, she thought back,
I can't. Only
he
can.
The thought of the sick one taking control of her body, even for a moment, was terrifying. She couldn't consider it. She just couldn't.