Infinity Beach (36 page)

“We have to go through the tunnel,” she told it. “I need
you
to do that.”

It didn’t waste time arguing. It descended slightly, lined up on the entrance, and slowed down.

“There’s a train coming in the other end at 9:42:45,” she said. “Thirty-second potential deviation.”

It did not respond and she assumed it was checking the schedule.
“You’re correct. I am filing a complaint.”

“That’s okay. Just get us through.”

The granite wall blocked off the sky.

“You’re aware the train may not be adhering to schedule?”

“It is,” she said.

“Zero,”
said the timer as they roared into the tunnel. Their lights flashed against stone walls. The track raced beneath them.

“I hope you understand that disconnecting the pilot is a misdemeanor, punishable by fine or imprisonment or both.”

“Please keep your mind on what you’re doing,” she said.

“Were you aware that battery capacity is quite low?”

“Yes.”

“There seems to have been an accident. How could you have burned out the system?”

“Let it go for now, Jerry. Get us out the other end and I’ll replace everything. Promise.”

“That’s very strange.”

“What is?”

“Another vehicle has just entered the tunnel behind us.”

“Good.” The shroud was going to have a hard time in the flyer’s wake. “Got you, you son of a bitch.”

The flyer’s lights stabbed ahead into the dark. Kim clung to her chair arms, pushing herself back hard in the seat. The walls were slowing down.

She glanced at the gauges. They’d dropped to 170 kph. And they were still dropping. “Jerry—”

“Kim, we cannot maintain stability at this velocity.”

“You can’t slow down, Jerry. We’ve got to stay at two hundred klicks. Or we won’t get out the other end.”

“Can’t be done. Not without hitting the wall.”

“Jerry—”

“I did not create this situation.”
The voice was accusing. Petulant.

It was 9:37. They had five minutes to clear the tunnel. “Jerry, we have to
try
—”

“I am sorry. I have no alternative but to slow to a manageable velocity.”

They were dropping past 150.

“It’s a question of probability. There is none that we can negotiate this tunnel at the minimum velocity you require. There is a slight possibility the train will be late. If it is—”

She pulled the plug on him and tried to take over but the tunnel walls were roaring by too fast, she couldn’t control the vehicle and had to drop even more speed, down past 120, past a hundred.

The shroud had fallen well behind, but it was still coming.

At 9:40 she was just barely halfway through.

She touched eighty and steadied. The world was slowing. With a pang of regret she thought of Solly, of dying young, of the mystery she would not live to solve.

The timer counted down to 9:42:45. The freight was in the tunnel, or damned soon would be, the two vehicles bearing down on each other at a combined speed of three hundred kilometers per hour.

Not good.

The guide rail bumped the bottom of the aircraft. Kim held on, slowed more.

Ahead, a light flickered. The single searching beam of the freight’s headlamp.

School was out.

She fired the retros and the flyer came down on the track, skidded, turned, pitched over the side into the lower level and slammed into the wall. Kim was thrown hard against her
restraints. The cabin lights went out, something crackled and began to burn, and she ended up hanging upside down in her seat.

The tunnel walls, ceiling, guide-rail supports, everything disappeared into the blazing cone of the oncoming headlight.

She was down on the lower level, the flyer jammed in nose first, its tail sticking up in the path of the freight. Kim hit the release and fell out of her seat.

She kicked the door open and scrambled out. The tunnel shook.

She staggered forward a few meters, trying to get clear of the aircraft, and caught a final glimpse of the shroud, which was silhouetted in the oncoming glare.

The track was supported by stanchions, one every ten meters or so. Kim threw herself at the base of the nearest one, grabbed hold, and buried her head. The train boomed past and ripped into the wrecked flyer. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to burrow down into the concrete as a hurricane of wind and screeching metal rolled over her. The ground rocked.

She woke up in a pleasant sun-drenched room. Yellow curtains framed the windows, and soft music drifted out of a speaker. A door opened almost immediately and someone came in. He, or she, wore a physician’s smock.

Kim couldn’t remember how she had gotten here, couldn’t remember anything since attending the memorial service for Solly. She tried to concentrate on her visitor, but noticed she had no feeling in her right leg. “Broken, I’m afraid,” he said. It
was
a male. Tall, dark skin, deep voice. She couldn’t focus on his face. “But you’ll be up and around in a few days,” he continued.

“Is this a hospital?” she asked.

“Yes.” He had dark eyes and seemed pleased about something. “How are you feeling?”

“Not too well.” She’d ridden the train to Eagle Point. Yes, that was it: She was in Eagle Point. Looking for Sheyel.

The physician was tapping a pen against a monitor screen, nodding to himself. “You’re doing fine,” he said. “You’ll probably feel a little out of sorts for a while, but you’ve suffered no serious damage.”

“Good,” she said.

The battle at the lake shore edged its way into her consciousness.

“Kim?”

Sheyel was dead. They were all dead.

“Kim? Are you with me?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“I’d like to ask you some questions. First, why don’t you give me your full name?”

He pulled up a chair and asked about her professional duties, how she had come to get into fund-raising, whether she was good at it. He wanted to know her birth date, what books she had read recently, where she had gone to school and what she’d studied. He asked whether she remembered how she had come to be in the hospital, and when she stumbled trying to answer he told her it was okay, don’t worry about it, it’ll all come back.

She had fled with the
Valiant
.

He asked her opinion on various political issues, questioned her on whether she owned a flyer, and how she enjoyed living in a seafront home. And he wanted her to explain how it could possibly be that the universe was not infinite.

The police cruiser got too close again. She tried to shake the memory off, assign it to delirium, get rid of it. But it
had
happened.

And then there had been the
tunnel
.

“By the way, there’s someone who’d like to talk to you. Asked specifically to be put through as soon as you were awake. Do you feel able?”

“Who?” she asked.

“A Mr. Woodbridge.”

Well, it didn’t take him long. “Yes,” she said. “I can talk to him.” She looked at the physician. He smiled at her, took her wrist for a moment, and told her she was going to be fine.

“What happened to the shroud?” she asked.

His brow creased. “What’s a shroud?”

“The
thing
. The whatever-it-was that was trying to kill me.”

“I’m sorry, Kim,” he said, “I really don’t know anything about that. But I wonder whether you should talk to anyone just now. Maybe you should rest a bit.”

She’d thrown the
Valiant
into the lake. My God, had she really done that? “No, it’s okay. I’m fine.” She tried to raise herself against her pillows. He helped. “Put him through,” she said.

“Okay. But five minutes. That’s all. Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Something to eat,” she said.

“I’ll have breakfast sent right up.” And he withdrew. She closed her eyes.

The projector came on, and she was staring at a virtual Woodbridge.

He was seated in an old-fashioned oak chair. Because of her awkward position in the bed, the projector was angled. Woodbridge peered down at her from a spot near the ceiling. He looked worried. “Kim,” he said, “are you all right?”

“I’ll have to do a little healing. Otherwise I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

She hesitated.

“It’s safe,” he said. “We’re on a secure circuit.”

That wasn’t why she hesitated. Tell him about the
Valiant
and it’s gone. Either to a government lab for research. Or back to the Tripley estate. Damn. After all she’d been through, the thing should belong to
her
, if it belonged to anyone. Anyway, she couldn’t see that she owed any kind of debt to anybody else.

“I got a call from Sheyel Tolliver,” she said, “asking me to meet him at Severin.” She explained that Sheyel must also have contacted Ben Tripley since Tripley had gone there too. But before she could find out what it was all about, the
thing
had attacked.

She described the assault at the lake and her subsequent flight.

“Curious,” said Woodbridge when she’d finished. “Why did Tolliver go out there? Why would he want you and Tripley along?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“And why did this
thing
suddenly go berserk? I mean, apparently it was there all these years, right? What was going on?” He frowned at her. “Kim, is there something you’re not telling me?”

He tried to dissect her with that Mephistophelian gaze. But she hardened herself and thought how easily she now resorted to deceiving people. “No,” she said. “I’m as baffled as you are.”

“This
shroud
, I’m informed no trace of it was found.”

“Good.”

“It strikes me that it has a resemblance to the creature you described from the
Hammersmith
.”

“I’m sure it’s the same kind of beast, Canon.”

“Have we reason to believe there are any others about?”

“Not that I know of.”

He looked sternly down at her. “Good. Let’s hope not. In the meantime, the local authorities are waiting to talk with you. Be careful what you say to them. No connections to the
Hunter
. Or to the
Hammersmith
. No other-world stuff. Okay? You were meeting friends, and other than that you don’t know what it was or why it attacked.”

“Canon, why don’t you just call them off?”

“Can’t,” he said. “People would think we were hiding something. You’ll be safe, Kim. I have confidence that you won’t tell them anything you don’t want them to know.” He smiled and blinked off.

An attendant came in with breakfast, accompanied by a nurse. “Dr. Brandywine,” she said, “there are some people here from the police to see you—”

“Repairing the tunnel’s going to cost half a million.” Matt Flexner was exasperated. “They’ll be rerouting traffic for the next year. You’re not very popular right now with the transportation people. Or with the taxpayers.”

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “It was the best I could do under the circumstances.” Aside from the broken bones, she’d suffered internal injuries and some burns, and would have bled to death had it not been for the quick work of Air Rescue, and the good fortune that they’d been able to get to her from the western end of the tunnel.

“Kim, we can do without the sarcasm. Since you’re an Institute representative,
we’re
taking the heat now.”

“Matt,” she said, “try to understand: I was running for my life. The Institute’s views weren’t uppermost in my mind.”

He softened. “I know. The problem is that they told you to stay out of the tunnel. But I’m glad you came through it okay.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

He nodded. “I guess I deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.”

He had a stack of images of the shroud, culled from the media. “What exactly
was
that thing anyhow?”

“It’s probably a designer life-form. It was apparently a passenger on the
Hunter
.”

His eyes widened. “How can that be?”

Matt wasn’t somebody you’d necessarily rely on in a crunch, but he knew how to keep his mouth shut. She needed to be able to talk to
somebody
. Especially if she was going to arrange to have the
Valiant
analyzed.

She was still debating what to do with it after she fished it out of the lake. Take it home and put it in the den? Keep its existence quiet while she tried to learn as much about it as she could? Any other course of action would lose the
Valiant
immediately. “Matt,” she said, “I’ll tell you everything I know. But first I want a quid pro quo.”

“Okay.” He folded his arms, as if someone were about to question his honor. “Name it.”

“You don’t say anything to anybody about what I’m about to tell you without my prior approval. Absolute blackout on this.”

“First tell me what it’s about.”

“No. I won’t tell you anything without the agreement.”

The muscles around his jaw worked, but he remained silent. “Okay,” he said finally. “What have you got?”

“A starship,” she said. “A
microship
. From somewhere else.”

His eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

“Have you ever known me to kid around?” She’d never seen him look so confused. “They’re telling me I’ll be out of here in a few more days.” Reconstructive procedures would heal her quickly. “Meet me and I’ll show you.”

“
Show
me? Where is it?”

“We’ll have to rent a boat.”

They also picked up some diving gear. Matt didn’t swim a stroke, and he worried about what would happen in the event of a problem while Kim was submerged. He feared she wasn’t quite entirely recovered yet, but she assured him that she was fine. She needed only not put too much weight on the leg.

He’d drawn the only possible conclusion. “You’re telling me it’s in the lake,” he said, as they put out from the north shore.

“Of course.”

“Kim, even if it is, I’ll drown trying to get a look at it.”

“You won’t have to go down.”

“You mean it’s visible from the boat?”

“I hope not.”

“Then what—?”

“Just bear with me a bit.” She had a sensor. But in fact it took almost two hours to find the site she wanted. By the time she did Matt had lost all patience. “It’s
small
,” she told him finally.

He frowned. “
How
small?”

She held her hands a half meter apart.
“Really,”
she added. “It’s a microship.”

The sensor picked it up finally, and she slipped over the side, used the jets to take her down through water that was quite clear, and had no trouble finding it. She plucked it out of the mud, then returned to the surface and handed it over to
Matt. He made a skeptical face, took it from her, and stared at it.

“Stop assuming,” she told him, “that the celestials have to be the same size we are.”

Gradually he came to accept the possibility. On the way back to Eagle Point, he sat with it in his lap, saying things like,
It
feels
as if it could be
. And
Maybe it’s possible
. “But, Kim, God help you if this is a joke.”

They bundled the microship in wrapping paper, stowed it in a carrying case, and put it in the flyer. “Okay,” he said. “First thing we’ll need to do is put together a team to look at it. We’ll want to take it apart, find out how it works. Maybe we can figure out what sort of crew it had.” He looked pointedly at her. The message was clear: If she was wrong, they were both going to look silly.

“We’ve got a problem,” she said as they lifted off.

“What is it this time, Kim?”

“You start bringing in experts and the word will be out within an hour.”

“You’re telling me that Woodbridge doesn’t know about this.”

“If he did, do you think we’d be sitting here with the microship?”

His jaw muscles worked. “Kim, there’s no way around that. He
has
to be informed.”

“Then kiss it goodbye.”

“I don’t—”

“Look, Matt, think about it. Once the Council finds out we have this, they’ll claim it. They’ll probably make it a security issue. You won’t have it long enough to get it out of the container.”

For a long time he said nothing. She watched him stare at the artifact, and then look out at the sky. “You’re right,” he said. “Okay. Let’s figure out who we can trust. We’ll keep it down to an absolute minimum number of people. Rent a lab somewhere, away from the Institute.”

“That’s better.”

“We can tell Phil.”

“No.”

“Kim, he’s a son of a bitch, but he knows how to keep a secret. We can trust him.”

“I don’t care whether we can trust him or not. There’s no reason he needs to know.”

They argued back and forth. In the end Matt caved in when she simply refused to go along with the idea.

He sat staring out the window all the way back to the hotel, clinging to the
Valiant
, not speaking, his jaw set, his eyes by turns exultant and wintry. “Kim,” he said, as they settled down onto the roof, “let me ask a question: Why are you so concerned about all this? The Council would recognize your part in the recovery; you’d become famous; you’d be wealthy before it was over. What more do you want?”

“I want to be part of the team that looks at it,” she said. “I want to be there when things happen.” She hesitated.

“—And?”

“I want to find out about Emily. How it happened that she was killed and dumped overboard. And who did it—”

The afternoon out on the lake had stimulated both their appetities. “The Blue Fin?” she suggested. It was a restaurant down on the mall, specializing in west coast cuisine.

“What do we do with
this
?” asked Matt.

“It’s starting already, isn’t it?” she said. “We’d better take it with us.”

They were early for dinner and the restaurant was almost empty. They found a table in a corner, and set the carrying case down on a chair against the wall. Kim asked for a
shonji
, which had a rum and strawberry base. Matt, who rarely drank, stepped out of character and ordered a Tyrolean Pistol. And they both went for the catch of the day.

Matt had a strong voice. It was a rich basso profundo, and when he got excited people could hear him at a considerable distance. So he made a conscious effort to speak low. “What do
you
think?” he asked. “What’ll the Council do about all this?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I think the celestials are
psychos. So Woodbridge is right to be worried. After we’ve been able to get the information we want out of it—” she glanced at the container, “—we’ll turn it over to him.”