Stray (24 page)

And all that time I'd been staring at the glowing mist and remembering moonfall on Muina.  Liquid light.  But moonfall hadn't hurt me, as it was so obviously hurting the Setari.

"What aether?" I asked Zan through our shared channel, since she was sitting down with her eyes closed and was probably the least busy that I'd get her.

"A form of energy," Zan replied, opening her eyes, but keeping her answer in the channel.  "We encounter it occasionally in the spaces, though I've not seen any reports of such concentrated amounts outside the major interplanetary gates which cut through deep-space.  It's very common around them, and we need to use vehicles to survive passing those gates."

"It do what you?"

"Initially pain, like being burned or frozen at the bones.  Interference with control of movement and talents, then loss of consciousness, increasing paralysis.  Death within a kasse, if you remain in it."  She closed her eyes again, but added: "We'll reach them yet."

"Is other sorts aether?"

She gave me a puzzled look, but then Kiste came back into view and fell through the gate, landing on his hands and knees.  "That stilt's heading this way," he said, panting.  "Circling, but definitely coming for here, and not slowly."

Haral was looking grimmer by the second, but his voice was still relaxed and calm as he said: "Kantan, enhance again and do what you can.  Mane, be ready to follow.  Signal if the stilt's in my projected enhanced range."  He went on as Kantan touched my shoulder.  "Given the effect of the aether, we can't take a stilt lightly, no matter how enhanced.  We'll try an initial group of myself, Lenton and Tens.  If everything we can do doesn't bring it down–"   He paused, and I suspect he'd realised he'd run out of conscious heavy-hitters.  "If we can't bring it down, Kiste, make whatever attempt you can while Namara and Drysen pull everyone they can reach to the gate."

Mane followed Kantan through before Haral finished speaking and Haral waited a few seconds then touched my arm, watching without change of expression as Kantan collapsed at Mane's feet.  He'd managed to strengthen the wind vortex, but the glowing mist didn't seem to be getting much thinner.  Lenton waited the bare minimum of my prescribed delay before enhancing himself as well, while Tens stepped up to help Mane, who was struggling not to fall while bringing Kantan and another – it was Alay – through the gate.

"Stilt will be closing in a count of twenty," Mane said, folding into a panting tangle almost on top of Alay.  "Gainer was the only one left in my range."

Tens touched my shoulder, and exchanged a glance with Haral.  I think they were trying to accept not succeeding in getting everyone out.

I never saw the stilt myself.  Only later, in extracts of the mission report which Zee showed me.  Black, nearly as tall as the tower, with a long, sloping body and spindly legs like vine tendrils.  The underside of it was all covered in more tendrils, long ones and short ones, and I think that's where its mouth was, because its head was just this sort of triangle with eyes.  Haral, Lenton and Tens concentrated their attacks on its underside, anyway, with Ice and then two balls of lightning.  The first was a little low, but the second was placed nicely, shattering frozen tentacles in a spectacular orgy of blasts.  One of its legs was blown apart, and it fell.

Lenton passed out, and Haral and Tens carried him back between them, staying upright themselves but moving very slowly.  "Go," Zan said to Drysen, who touched me and headed out, face bleak.  I saw the same expression on Zan's face as she waited her turn.  Everyone who'd gone in a second time had collapsed.  With the continuing Ionoth attacks, it was no wonder all of Sixth Squad had ended up unconscious.  The few Setari remaining had no chance of getting the other squads out.  When Drysen didn't even manage to bring back one more person before going down, Zan lifted her hand toward my shoulder.  And I caught and held her still, just long enough to take advantage of her surprise and step through the gate myself.

I'd almost convinced myself that it would hurt.  Genetically, I'm the same as these people, and every one of them had flinched a little walking into the mist and then acted like it was slowly crushing them.  But it was just the same as Muina's: chilly but bringing a pleasant warmth, a feeling of wellbeing.  The wind from the vortex made it swirl around me ominously, but I felt fine.

Drysen wasn't a little guy.  There was no way I could carry him through the gate, but I could drag him closer and lift him partway so that Zan and the one called Nels could haul him the rest of the way through.  I paused before following, taking a good look about, but could see no sign of more Ionoth for the moment.  I was wondering if not trying to go through before was a big screw-up on my part, but it's not as if I would have been able to fight off the Ionoth.  Besides, I would have had to waste time arguing with everyone, and the picture I was presenting was definitely worth a thousand words.

"Try close door, best thing?"  I asked, after stepping back through.

"That doesn't a
ffect you?"  Haral sounded totally nonplussed.

"Is – moonlight feel is alcohol.  Light-headed, bit dizzy."  I shrugged.  "Not hurt, such.  Is close door help?"

Zan and Haral exchanged a long glance, then Zan said: "I don't see any other positive options," and Haral pulled a face and nodded. 

"Run," Zan said to me.

That I didn't need encouragement to do.  If any more Ionoth came along, I'd be the one with my face scraped off.  And I hadn't properly worked out just how much time was left before people would start dying from exposure to the aether.

I don't recommend taking on Serious Business while tanked.  It's not so much that I was incapable of running (well, jogging) a hundred metres, even though I became ever more pixillated with each step.  I saw Mara as I ran past and became madly convinced I was going to let her down, and I really didn't want to.  It was a damn good thing that I wasn't out to do anything more complicated than close some doors.  And I remember this whole obsession growing up about the size of the doors and that I wouldn't be able to move them when I got there, but then I was there.  I actually collided with the right door, which was one way to learn that they moved really easily.  I pushed it shut, suddenly feeling good again, and started for the other half, and that's when my head shut down altogether.

As I was waking up, I was thinking that since I was waking up I must have shut the other half of the door.  Then I was noticing a fuzzy fence which seemed to be holding the fact that I felt very very bad at a bearable distance.  And a weirdness about my face, which made me lift a hand, and I found that one of my eyes was covered up.  There was something else which was even weirder, but I couldn't immediately figure out what it was, so I turned my head and saw that Maze was on a chair beside me, but asleep, slumped against the wall.

I heard someone shift on my other side, and that was harder to look at because of my covered eye.  Without understanding why, I didn't want to move my hand, and kept it over the bandage, but eventually I managed to shift round enough to see Zan, who I think must have moved so I could see her.  She plainly needed to sleep a lot too, but mostly she looked incredibly relieved and happy-upset.

I wanted to say something about she should smile more often, but that's when I realised what was really weird.  No interface.  Not at all.  Trying to talk and not having suggestions for words coming in my mind really threw me.  I couldn't even remember really common words which I'd actually
learned
, my brain was so mushy.  So I just tried to smile back at her, and said: "Stupid language," in English in a really croaky voice, and most sensibly passed out.

Next time I opened my eyes, Zee was there instead, and I was a little more capable of stringing two thoughts together.  And seemed to be in less pain, but also on fewer painkillers, so I felt it more.  I was pleased that I could remember a few words of Taren this time, and managed: "No interface?"  but my throat really didn't like me talking, and my chest felt all congested and my mouth tasted foul, so I coughed until Zee fetched a greysuit who helped me spit out black stuff and drink some water – from which I figured that the Setari again have orders not to touch me.

I hate being in the medical section, especially anything which involves drips and catheters and tubes.  Tare's technology seems to be pretty similar to Earth's in respect of tubes, and the greysuit sent Zee away and did a bunch of tests, and fed me about a half a cup of a horrible salty-sweet drink, but thankfully removed the tubes.  Some time during this I caught sight of my arms, and was holding them up and staring at them when Zee came back with Maze and a different greysuit.

"I look like the world's worst junkie," I said, still in English, turning my arms to better appreciate their purple and blue glory.  I'd never seen anything like it.  Even my
palms
were bruised.

I couldn't understand what they said back, of course.  Maze looked like he'd had a proper rest, so I'm guessing it was a lot later than the first time I woke.  They were being pleased I was awake, but serious at the same time, and Zee said something to me slowly which had the word for interface in it a couple of times.  I just shrugged, though I was finding that moving hurt and staying still hurt, which didn't really seem fair.  Then I felt all tingly for a moment, and like I was catching up with myself.

"Can you understand now?"  the greysuit asked, and I nodded, but put my hand back over my bandaged eye because it had started hurting rather more than anything else.  "Some lingering malformation there," the greysuit said helpfully, but did something which made it stop hurting.  "It'll be a few days before the remedial work is complete and the remnant toxins are flushed from her system," he added.  "But there doesn't seem to be any loss of function."

"Mission log's intact," Maze murmured to Zee, and nodded to the greysuit, who gave me a last glance and went away.

"Everyone alive?"  I asked, and saw the 'no' in their faces before Zee answered.

"Ammas from Sixth Squad died during the return to base," she said, and we all looked down at the same time, as if it was rehearsed.  "You remember what happened?"

"Up to door."  I glanced at my arms again.  "It fall on me?"

"No."  Zee wrinkled her nose.  "Your interface started growing again, destructively beyond prescribed limits.  It became non-functional and had to be shut down and pared back."  She indicated the purple patterns beneath my skin.  "That's partly the damage and partly slough from the repair work.  Your left eye suffered the most, but they don't expect permanent problems."

Nanotech.  I sighed.  Convenient as it is, I'd really appreciate it if my interface didn't keep trying to kill me.

"We've only had the outside view of what happened after you reached the door," Maze said, passing me across a log file.  From his faintly abstracted expression, I guessed he was reviewing mine, a thing which always makes me feel totally weird.

The log file was Haral's, watching through the gate as I jogged with a curving wobble toward the end to the Pillar.  It wasn't
too
obvious at that distance that I ran into the door rather than deliberately stopping, but I stood there for at least a count of five before my brain caught up and I pushed the thing shut.  I turned to cross to the other door in a business-like way, but paused in the gap, looking inside.

And then another wave of light came pouring out, filling the entire space with white, and I heard the Setari who'd been watching me gasp, and Nels said: "Tzatch," which Lohn tells me is a shortened version of Tzarazatch, a spiritual concept on Tare kind of like Ragnarok: the destructive end of everything.  I can't get Lohn to tell me any real swear words, but he explains the milder ones.

For about thirty seconds there was nothing but whiteness, and it didn't even look like it was going to settle as it had the first time, but then it thinned abruptly and was sucked away to nothing, back into the Pillar, leaving the space as clear and empty as it had been the first time I saw it, except for all the unconscious Setari.  I was noticeably absent from the doorway.

The fragment of the log finished, and I looked back up at Maze and then blinked, confused.  His face was set and furious, a muscle working in his cheek.  Zee was staring at him, as surprised as I was, and when she touched his arm he flinched away, then said: "Watch her log," and turned his back, getting himself under control.

Of course, that immediately made me watch it myself, jumping straight to the last bit I remembered: closing the right half of the door.  It's highly disorienting to watch things you don't remember doing.  I only remember stepping forward, don't remember at all looking into the interior of the Pillar.  Most of it was taken up by the central core, with empty space curving off to the right and left.  There was a rounded rectangular hatch just about at head height on the internal column, with two big white levers set into the stone below it.  By big I mean almost as long as my leg, sticking out of grooves that ran to the right around the Pillar's core.

The hatch was designed to slide, and was open a crack on the right hand side, making a brilliant white vertical line from which aether drifted down.  And as I looked up at that, something interrupted the vertical line, a few black spots blocking the brightness.  Fingertips, claws, curving around the hatch from the inside.  Then it pulled it open, the movement accompanied by a shifting rumble from the levers, and everything went white.