Heirs of Earth (35 page)

“The seventh hole ship, Caryl. It is there.”

“Okay, okay. Zoom in on it for me, will you?”

The image ballooned.

Sol shook her head. “I can’t see anything. Zoom in closer.”

The “grapes” expanded until their edges leaked out of the window.

“What the fuck is going—”

“Wait a second, Caryl,” said Alander, leaving his station to step up to the screen. He pointed at something in the image. “
Eledone
, what’s that?”

Tucked into the join between two of the spheres, almost invisible in the overlap, was a round, white circle.

“That is the hole ship you are seeking, Peter.”

“It’s
part
of you?”

“No, Peter. It is an independent vehicle.”

“Then where
is
it? If it’s not part of you and yet it shows up on this view, then it must be in here with us.”

“Hands up all of those who can see a suspicious looking sphere floating around in here,” Sol said, her frustration emerging as sarcasm.

With a sinking feeling, Alander turned to look at where Axford’s body hung contained in its separate section of the cockpit. “Oh, shit...”

Sol followed his gaze. “What? What is it?”

Alander moved over to the boundary that separated the ex-general from everyone else.
Eledone
created an opening in the containment field, which he stepped cautiously through. He winced as the smell of blood immediately accosted his senses.

“Peter, what are you doing?” said Sol, moving to the boundary also, but stopping at its edge. “We don’t even know if he’s dead yet!”

“It’s in him, Caryl.”

She frowned, shaking her head. “What is? The
hole ship
?”

Alander nodded. “Remember, they can shrink a long way down when they want to. God only knows what he’s filled it with: weapons, sensors, all sorts of stuff.”

The others joined Hatzis now, all staring at Axford’s inert body. “He’d be just crazy enough to try something like this, too,” said Samson.

“When he said he could get us out of
Eledone
,” mumbled Inari, “I never imagined
this
.”

“None of us did,” said Alander. “But if the ship wasn’t activated when
Eledone
was damaged, then there’s every chance its ftl drive might still be working. All we have to do is get it out.”

“Be careful, Peter,” said Sol. “Let
Eledone
do most of the work. He—
it
could still be booby-trapped.”

Alander acknowledged her caution with a grim smile. That was indeed a strong likelihood, given Axford’s nature. The ex-general would have a contingency plan for virtually every possible outcome of a situation, he was sure.

Axford’s body appeared unchanged from when it had been contained, but he treated it warily all the same. The insect-leg tools where Axford’s hand had once been hung limp and sinister in a tangle. Extending a toe, Alander touched the body gently at first, then more firmly when there was no response.

Again he noted a strange sense of resistance. The body wasn’t moving quite right, as though it weighed far more than it should.

Hardly surprising, he thought, given that there’s probably an entire hole ship buried in there.

He pushed harder, noting how the body listed slightly around a point low in its abdomen. He jumped back slightly when Axford’s head lolled to one side, as if turning to face him. But the android’s eyes and expression were free of accusation; the look of surprise for when Alander had caved in Axford’s rib cage remained frozen on his face. The movement had simply been a result of the body shifting.

He took a deep, calming breath before addressing the hole ship. “
Eledone,
I want you to cut into Frank’s body. I don’t care how; use a field effect or something.”

“Where would you like the incision to be made?”

“Above the waist of his uniform,” he said, pointing. “Just along the seam there.”

Something shimmered in the air as an invisible blade sliced along where Alander indicated; everyone watched on in silence as the thick, black material parted and peeled back. The skin of Axford 1313’s body looked little different than that of any other android, but Alander watched it warily all the same. An incision yawned on the dead man’s belly, opening like a lipless mouth. There wasn’t much blood; Axford had been dead long enough for it to settle. Alander stared in mute fascination as
Eledone
cut smoothly through fat and abdominal muscle to the gut.

“I have encountered an obstruction,” the hole ship said after a few minutes of cutting.

Alander leaned closer. “Wipe the mess away. Let me see.”

Gore parted to reveal a gleam of white that clearly wasn’t bone.

“I don’t believe it,” breathed Inari from behind him. “The bastard could’ve taken us home at any time.”

Alander pointed. “
Eledone,
I want you to remove that object—the hole ship—from Frank’s body. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Peter.” Shimmering forces enfolded the corpse as the gash across its midsection widened. A matching incision formed a cross down its belly. Axford’s body bent backward. A thick layer of tissue folded neatly away. Like a surreal caesarian section, a white sphere bigger than an adult human’s head and slick with gore bulged out of the cavity. It popped free with a hideous squelching sound and hung motionless in the air.

Behind it, Axford’s body straightened and slid to one side, no longer relevant.

Alander walked around the mini-hole ship. It was hard to believe, close up, that he was standing in front of the entrance to an ftl vessel. It looked like nothing more than an oversized marble spattered with red paint. He was at a loss for a moment to know how to get inside it. If he convinced it to expand to its normal size, it would blow their cockpit to pieces.

The solution, when it came from Sol, was so obvious that he was annoyed for not having thought of it himself.

“
Eledone
,” she said, “is it possible for you to merge with Axford’s hole ship while it’s in this state?”

“Yes, Caryl.”

Alander glanced at Sol, who simultaneously shrugged and nodded, as if to say:
What have we got to lose?

He acquiesced with a nervous sigh. “Okay,
Eledone,
do it—but make sure you keep its interior separated from ours.”

Alander stepped back as the miniature hole ship drifted toward the outer wall of the chamber. A dimple puckered up to meet it, swallowing the blood-smeared globe with a single gulp. He felt a soft vibration thrum through the deck beneath his feet, but there was no other indication of what was going on out of sight. Powerful technology flexed, twisting matter into unusual shapes and sending energy coursing along new pathways.

Silently, a door appeared in the wall opposite him. Oval and opaque, it awaited his approach.

“Open it,
Eledone
.”

There was a slight puff of air as pressures equalized. Alander stepped forward to peer up the short corridor leading into Axford’s hole ship. He couldn’t see anything untoward, but he stepped through the door with caution, nonetheless.

The floor jolted beneath him. He stopped to steady himself, and glanced questioningly over his shoulder at Sol.

“External,” she assured him. “The Trident must be really be taking a hammering.”

He nodded, relieved that he hadn’t triggered some mass-destructive device but concerned also that they weren’t making any real progress toward escaping. Taking another deep and tremulous breath, he continued into the hole ship, walking forward into the cockpit where he was hoping he’d find something that might be of use to them.

The cockpit turned out not to be the usual white space he’d expected. The walls were lined with glass-covered alcoves and frosted storage containers. He had to think hard before he remembered where he’d last seen anything like them. Their lines were harder, metallic, not the smooth roundedness of the Spinner tech. They had an almost military air. That they were of human origin, not alien, seemed obvious.

There was a line of nine white spheres along one wall, each identical to the one Alander had found in Axford’s gut. His mind reeled at the implication.
Hole ships within hole ships within hole ships,
he thought. The chain could go forever with just one entrance to the “real” universe.

He tried to open one of the alcoves, but it was firmly sealed shut. Through the frosted glass he could make out a faint shadow, a vaguely human form, but he couldn’t discern the face. The alcoves were linked by cables to a bank of SSDSs covered in flickering displays. They moved rhythmically, hypnotically.

As he bent down to examine the cables, the purpose of the alcoves came to him. They were android breeders, sometimes referred to as ovens among nanotechnicians. He hadn’t seen one since entrainment days, although each survey mission had one built into the core vessel. But he’d never seen so many in once place before!

“Why the hell would he...”

Before he could finish the question, the answer had already occurred to him.

“Peter?” Startled from his thoughts, Alander wheeled around to see Sol standing in the entrance. She came forward when he faced her. “I didn’t hear anything dramatic happen after you came in, so decided it must be—”

She, too, stopped to stare at the ring of android breeders. There were twenty in all, each containing half-grown androids. Alander didn’t have to check to know whose androids they were.

“So much for weapons,” Sol said, looking slightly pale.

Alander could understand her discomfort. “He wasn’t along to help us at all, Caryl. He never even thought we stood a chance, right from the start. That’s why he was constantly trying to get away. That fucker was here to
colonize
.”

Sol shook her head. “But for you, he might’ve gotten away with it, too.”

“I still might,” said a voice from behind them.

They spun around together to find Axford standing between them and the doorway.

Sol took a surprised step back. “But you’re
dead
,” she said.

Alander looked past him, up the short corridor leading outside. Axford 1313 was visible, still splayed where he’d left him.

“Thirteen-thirteen is dead,” Alander said. “This is a different one. Right, Frank?”

Axford affected a relaxed smile, belying the functionally vicious handgun he was pointing at them. “I’m 1041,” he said. “Nice to see you again, Caryl.”

“You’ve been here the whole time,” she said. “Thirteen-thirteen was just the courier. You’re the payload.”

“The seed, if you like. I was watching through his senses when you killed him. I thought about revealing myself then, but I figured it was safer to wait. You might not have guessed the truth. If you hadn’t, I would have been free to leave whenever the ftl environment had settled down.”

“You’re not going anywhere now, Frank,” said Sol.

“I don’t think you’re really in any position to threaten me, Caryl.” Ten-forty-one looked down at his handgun; then, surprisingly, he tossed it aside and faced Alander. “I know that I probably can’t kill you now, but I have a feeling you’re going to let me go anyway.”

“You’re very much mistaken, I’m afraid,” he said.

“Maybe.” Axford glanced at Sol. “But I don’t think so.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You still think you’re going to succeed, Caryl,” he told her. “You might be right, you might well survive. But me, I
know
I’m going to survive, here and in many, many other places. We’re all going to meet up eventually and begin expanding.” His voice was cold. “I told you once that it’s a big galaxy, that we could coexist peacefully. I wasn’t lying, either. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Treat me badly, and it’ll be
your
worlds I colonize first.” He shrugged. “The choice is yours.”

Alander stepped forward, fists clenching.

“I’m warning you, Caryl,” said Axford, backing away. “Call off your pet freak right now.”

Alander laughed. Physically attacking the ex-general had never been his intention; he was just going for the weapon Axford had discarded. He picked it up and hefted it in one hand.

“What’s this?” he asked. “A PEP gun like 1313 had?”

“Much the same.”

Alander looked at Sol. With one smooth motion, he raised the gun and aimed it at Axford. “What do you think, Caryl? Should we lock him up, or just shoot him now and be done with it?”

“He has a point,” said Sol with an uncomfortable reluctance. “We’re not in a position to make enemies of him, Peter.”

“Don’t let him intimidate you,” he said. “He may be able to breed, but so what? We can breed, too, and there are more of us than him. Remember, we have the advantage of a wider gene pool. It takes more than determination to survive. We have the breadth of experience. We have hybrid vigor.”

Axford smiled. “Maybe so. But that’s not enough, either. It’s a dog-eat-dog universe out there, and you have to be the dog that bites first, or you end up getting bitten. Personally, I don’t think you have what it takes.”

Alander tightened his grip on the weapon. He could feel the floor of the hole ship shaking beneath him. Whatever was happening to the Trident, it was only getting worse. They didn’t have all day to stand around arguing about who deserved to survive in the long term.

Are we immortal
, Lucia had asked him once,
or destined to die a thousand times?

Alander fired. He wasn’t an expert shot, but at such close range, it was effective enough. The noise was deafening, the flash of light blinding. He barely blinked, and Axford was on the floor, a bloody mess contained by his I-suit where his head had once been.

“Jesus—!” Sol flinched from the violence. “My God, Peter. You killed him!”

“That was the idea.” He lowered the weapon, aware of sweat on his palms, weakness in his knees, and a tremor all down his gun arm. He didn’t feel sick, and he didn’t feel guilty, but he was immensely relieved that he didn’t feel powerful, either.

She went over to check Axford for a pulse. Like Alander, she obviously wasn’t prepared to take any chances when it came to the ex-general.

“Two down,” she said, standing. “God only knows how many more to go.”