Extinction

-31-

I hadn’t slowed the ship down enough to safely reenter Venus’ atmosphere. We’d been decelerating, but there was no speedometer on my Nano ship, and using imprecise verbal commands such as take us in slowly proved too vague in this instance. The ship had no scripts or experience to safety-check my decisions when going through a ring. Things went badly.

When I later regained consciousness, I estimated we went through the ring at about Mach 1. That’s a very slow speed in astronomical terms, but when hitting a thick, soupy atmosphere it was much too fast. What passed for air on Venus was similar to water on Earth. Hitting it at speed was like plunging a jetliner into the ocean. We didn’t even slide along the surface, we dove smack into it.

I think what saved us was the thickening of the hull around the bridge. Other areas of the ship were wrecked. When I woke up, drifting over Venus in my crash seat, the forward wall was dented in and blank.

“Socorro?” I asked.

“Responding.”

I felt a moment of relief. At least the brainbox had survived.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Unknown.”

“Why is the forward wall blank?” I asked. As I looked at it, I became increasingly alarmed. It wasn’t only blank, it had big creases in it, lines that poked in toward us menacingly.

“Emergency procedures have reprioritized nanite formation settings. Resetting to standard settings.”

“No,” I said hurriedly. I didn’t know what the emergency priorities were, but I figured they were a good idea right now. “Maintain all emergency priorities.”

“Acknowledged.”

I tried to unbuckle myself with my right arm, but my hand didn’t work properly. I felt bones grind. I figured out my right thumb must be broken. I sweated as I pulled it straight and set it with a click. The nanites in my body would have to work on that one. I used my left hand to unbuckle and levered myself painfully out of my chair. I checked on Sandra next. She was hurt worse than I was, and I felt more guilt than at any point on the trip. She came around at my touch, moaning.

“Are we home?” she asked me.

“Almost. Just relax, you’ve got a few injuries.”

“I don’t care,” she said, keeping her eyes squinched closed. “Just tell me what year it is.”

“Everything’s fine. It’s the same day we left,” I said. I had no idea if I was lying or not.

Sandra smiled with the half of her mouth that still worked properly. Blood ran from her left eye down her neck. Her eyes stayed shut. “Good,” she said, and passed out again.

I gently eased her back into her seat and made her as comfortable as I could. Rivers of nanites flowed over the walls around me in veins that grew, pulsed, and then shrank away to nothing. I knew the ship was reconfiguring and repairing itself as best it could. I questioned Socorro about the status of the ship. We had no communications, no sensors, and only one engine. Worst of all, my flatscreen had a big crack in it.

I checked every camera in turn, and eventually found one that still worked. I managed to get it to feed images to the cracked screen. I had my ship limp back to the ring. The Macro ships were gone. Had they escorted us here and left? Were they up in Venus orbit now, or heading to Earth to check up on things? I had no idea and no way of finding out.

I ordered my last camera covered with a protective nanite dome again. I might need it. I ordered the ship to ease us up out of the atmosphere. The worst part was the high-velocity winds in the acid-clouds. I flew the Socorro through them, then dared to uncover my last camera again. Fortunately, it still worked. Without sensors and with no replicating mini-factory aboard to build new equipment, we might have been unable to navigate home.

We spent the next week limping home, taking sightings on Earth with the camera and realigning our course to glide after her. Like all planets, our world was a moving target, and we didn’t have as much power as before. But we made it home before our food supplies ran out. By that time, Sandra and I had healed up completely and were bored out of our minds. Even acrobatic freefall-sex had worn thin.

It was with great relief that we drifted down out of the sky over Andros Island. I headed for the main base, figuring I had a lot of debriefing to do. We still didn’t have any working communications, so they didn’t know I was coming. Using my lone working camera, I guided us in, giving verbal commands to the Socorro, as the ship was flying blind. The beam turrets homed in on us and followed us down ominously. They didn’t fire, which at least indicated they recognized us.

We landed and a dozen marines rushed out to circle the ship. They were wearing their full kit, with hoods down, reactors on their back and beam projectors held across their chests. I swiveled the camera and began to frown.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sandra. “Why is everyone running around like that? Don’t they know us?”

“Something has them worked up, that’s for sure.”

I knew I should go out there and talk to them, but I hesitated. I licked my lips, and felt Sandra staring at me.

“Something is horribly wrong,” she said. “It’s time-dilation, isn’t it?”

“Nah,” I said. “It looks like our time. The beam turrets have just been built. The camp looks the same as the day I left.”

“Don’t go out there, Kyle. Something’s wrong, don’t you sense it? Let’s just fly up and away, gently.”

I looked at her. “Why?”

“This might not even be our world. What if we came back to the right time, but not quite the right place?”

I blinked. That was a new and frightening idea. “A parallel universe? I don’t buy that.”

“What else would make them act so differently if we’ve only been gone ten days?”

“Maybe it’s been a year. Maybe there has been a coup of some kind, and I’m not as welcome as I once was.”

“Two more reasons to back off. If we don’t make any surprising moves maybe they won’t fire on us.”

I nodded. “Socorro, follow Sandra’s orders if I’m out of contact.”

“Sandra is command personnel?”

“Yes.”

I kissed her. I had to pry her fingers away from my neck, then I went outside.

The men were indeed nervous. When the hatch melted open and I stepped out, they didn’t point their projectors at me, but I felt them twitch as if they wanted to. I stepped up to the duty Sergeant. I thought I knew him.

“Santos?” I asked.

Santos opened his mouth, closed it again, then opened it again. He heaved a huge sigh. “Yes, sir. Good to see you, sir.”

“What’s going on?”

“We’ve got orders to escort you to the command center, sir. On the double.”

I looked around at them, they looked serious—and nervous. I nodded.

Mentally, I contacted the Socorro. The ship still sat grounded behind me. Her bulk blocked out the sky. Socorro, seal all entrances.

Acknowledged.

I’d figured it out. I was pretty sure this was a coup of some kind. Crow or one of the other officers had made a move and grabbed power. I thought about trying to dodge back aboard my ship, but I didn’t figure I’d make it past a dozen armed men. The best move was to bluff it through, as I’d done with the Macros.

I turned and walked toward the command center. The men followed me. Sergeant Santos hurried to keep up.

“Uh, sir?” he said in a hushed voice.

“What is it, Sergeant?”

“Do you know what the hell is going on?”

I gave him a half-smile. “I was about to ask you the same question. Don’t worry Sergeant, just back me up and I’ll straighten it all out.”

The man looked relieved. I felt relief myself. Maybe I could turn this firing squad into an honor guard. Whoever had organized this coup didn’t have full control yet if these men didn’t know what was up. If they hadn’t decided whose side they were on—well, I’d make sure they were on my side.

“Give me your sidearm, will you, Sergeant?” I asked.

“Uh, of course, sir,” he said, handing it over.

I walked up to the command center. We’d long ago fixed the window the Alamo had broken by plucking out the irritating General Sokolov. I threw open the door, ushered Santos and two of his nearest men into the building, then slammed the door behind us. It shook the glass in the window.

There was Crow, standing over the big, pool table-sized planning computer. I walked up to him. I was big on the direct approach.

Crow turned and saw me, and his brows knit into a fierce frown of determination. His lips curled back into a snarl. I nodded to him. If that’s how this was going to go down, I was ready. He stepped up to me and reached out his big arms, teeth bared.

“What the hell did you do up there, Kyle?” he asked.

Both of us registered surprise. I’d been expecting something along the lines of, You’re finished here, Riggs.

Crow’s surprise was of an entirely different nature. He looked down and found a pistol probing his belly.

“What the hell is this? Put that away, man. We have an emergency,” Crow said. He batted away the pistol, and I let him. He pointed toward the big computer table. I followed his finger warily. I was confused.

“They came down three days ago. At first, they were just wandering around, scanning everything I suspect. We tried to talk to them, but they mostly ignored us. Then the Chinese made a bad move.”

“The Chinese?” I asked.

I looked at the computer table. It glowed with a sweeping map of Eastern Asia. It was dotted with icons representing bases, population concentrations and military units.

“What the hell is going on, Jack?” I asked. “Pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s the Macros, Kyle. They came back and the Chinese shot some missiles at them from their silos in Tibet—the ones around Delingha. Apparently, they had some new ground-to-space weaponry they wanted to try out. Now, the Macros are bombing them. They are killing millions.”