Resolution (41 page)

Before her consciousness disintegrates, the robot arms’ co-processors complete the intended action, gently lift the struggling baby from her opened womb: a baby with eyes of glistening jet.

She will be named Dorothy, after the astrophysicist on watch at Metronome Station on far orbit around the pulsar known as Delta Cephei. That Dorothy will hear the beacon broadcast, the pre-recorded message as well as the realtime audio of a newborn baby’s wailing, and direct a retrieval shuttle to find mother and daughter.

Of course, with a teenager’s wilfulness, the girl will later refuse to be known by any other name than Ro, though Pilots will refer to her as Admiral.

‘But that’s not really a ghost story,’ said Orla.

‘Does it matter?’ McLean took a swig of whisky, and blinked. ‘I was riveted.’

‘How’ - Dirk stopped, swallowed - ‘how does it end?’

‘Well, the official records show that mu-space voyages rarely ended in mysterious disappearances after that date. You could put it down to experience, and techniques of avoiding any patterns that might be waiting.’

‘Or...’

‘Or,’ said Chalou, ‘I can tell you what happened when my ship was caught in a geodesic maelstrom, and I was minutes away from death.’

On the floor, Sam picked up his ears and softly growled.

‘I think he’s heard this one.’ McLean raised his glass in mock toast. ‘Sorry. Go on.’

‘It sucked my vessel in, beginning a sliding chaotic trajectory which would last literally for ever, and I fought for as long as I could but in the end I relinquished all system control and just...’

‘Just what, Uncle Claude?’

‘I prayed. Aloud, on open channel.’

‘Oh, God.’ Dirk turned away.

‘Perhaps. Or something very like Him. At any rate, a strange band of stillness passed across the maelstrom and carried my ship to safety.’

‘Just a freak—’

‘And a feeling of calmness and warm amusement settled over me. As if a benign presence was watching out on my behalf.’

‘Sounds like pure relief, Uncle Claude. Emotional reaction.’

‘Except that a geodesic maelstrom never behaves like that... Unless you broadcast a prayer to Dart.’

You prayed to my grandfather? My dead grandfather?

It was a concept Dirk could not quite connect to reality.

‘The thing is, Orla’ - Chalou smiled - ‘that is the only ghost story I know. But every single word is true.’

Holoflames flickered in the grate, though nothing burned.

Dirk stood with Orla in the kitchen, while a small machine labelled
Plasmonic Barista
flash-heated lattes.

‘You grew up in a convent?’ asked Orla, pretending not to notice the drinks were ready.

‘Sort of. It was fun, but ... It left me a bit institutionalized, I think. Mother always makes fun of the Holy Rollerettes.’

‘And she’s away most of the time. Your mother, I mean.’

‘Yeah, but ... She’s an awful, lot more fun than most older folk, y’know? What about your—?’

‘My parents died. Uncle Claude helped raise me after the— Afterwards.’

‘Is that why he retired?’

‘Part of it. But he no longer had the reflexes, apparently ... It’s not fair!’

The sudden depth of feeling surprised Dirk.

‘What isn’t fair?’

‘Here, he’s just another old blind man, right? But in mu-space ...’

Her voice trailed off.

In mu-space, he was a fearless explorer who communed with a god.

If you believed in that sort of thing.

‘Orla, I think your uncle is a—’

But Orla’s hands were on Dirk’s shoulders, and she was raising her lips to his, and her kiss was a soft explosion of sweetness which pushed aside old tales and misery, a soaring promise of an elated future where things could never fall apart, grow old or die.

<>

~ * ~

26

NULAPEIRON AD 3426

Tom was surprised to see asymmetric forms loom in the darkness: buildings constructed on the ocean floor. A comma-shaped building, softly luminescent, grew large as Feltima directed the mantargos towards a wide membrane.

If the Anomaly manifests itself here, there’ll be no escape.

Anywhere else, there was at least the faintest chance of running. But at the bottom of Nether Ocean there was nowhere to go.

‘Gently now,’ Feltima murmured, and her co-pilot nodded.

Then they were through the membrane and surfacing in a docking-bay pool, floating flat-winged. On the ceiling above them, graser batteries swung to bear.

‘Just precautions.’ Trevalkin made a control gesture, and the control cabin’s ceiling furled open. He called out: ‘It’s only us.’

There was no response from whatever system or human being controlled the weapons. The dock itself extruded a nest of tendrils. One of them elongated, extended itself to the mantargos, dipped inside and wrapped itself around Trevalkin’s waist.

‘See you in a moment,’ he told Tom.

The tendril lifted him across the pool, deposited him on the platform and released him.

At least
he’s
safe.

It begged the question of what these people intended to do to the renegade Lord Corcorigan in their midst. Was the Anomaly his only enemy now?

Elva. I ought to be with Elva.

If these were the final days—

A tendril plucked Tom from the cabin, and hauled him up into the air. It placed him down gently beside Trevalkin. Then more tendrils lowered, reaching into the mantargos for the remaining passengers.

All of them, Tom and Trevalkin and Doria and Grax and their operatives, assembled before a bank of drop-tubes. Then the whole party descended together to a waiting antechamber, where a solitary grey-uniformed soldier bowed in salute.

‘Welcome back, sir.’

‘Good to be here,’ said Trevalkin.

‘The ... emissary will be here shortly.’

Doria and Grax took up opposing flanks, guarding Tom: a small gesture in the midst of another organization’s stronghold. Whether that organization was an ally or an enemy remained to be seen.

‘Safe.’ Trevalkin looked around at the solid walls. ‘Thank Fate.’

Grax laughed shortly.

‘Does that mean,’ said Trevalkin, ‘that you don’t believe we’re—? Ah, welcome, honoured sir.’

A modest lev-chair slid slowly through a door-membrane. On the chair sat a pale, drawn man of Zhongguo Ren ancestry. His moustache was long and narrow.

‘Zhao-ji!’

‘Hey, Tom. How’s life?’

A subtle palsy kept up a constant shaking of Zhao-ji’s bony left hand.