Horizons

TWENTY-ONE

“OKAY, I BOUGHT IN.” BREATHING HARD. KYROS LET THE ship rest in the fifth hole they had checked. “You believe somebody is gonna drop a rock and I believe you. But I want to know who’s going to be shooting at me.”

“They might not shoot.” Ahni winced and rubbed the purpling bruise across her shoulder. They had been playing hide and seek with the security beams because Kyros didn’t have an updated Low-Orbit license, just an up-and-down permit. Something to do with forgetting to pay transport tariffs on some merchandise he moved between Dragon Home and New Singapore he had told her. At least she barely noticed her ankle any more. Everything else hurt a lot more. “They might figure nobody would guess until it was too late.”

“You don’t know squat,” Kyros growled and fished a water squeeze from a net above his head. “You don’t push a rock around without a shipkiller.”

Nice name. “Can I have some when you’re finished?” She snagged the squeeze as he sailed it her way and gulped the tepid water, trying not to think that it tasted like old sweat. Her stomach was having enough trouble. “It’s my brother. And… my friend.”

“You keep nice company, kid” Kyros shook his head as she sailed the empty water bulb back to him.

“What do they get out of it?”

“The end of the Platforms.” She sighed, and stretched her senses, feeling for any echo of Tania.

And there she was.

Ahni turned her head. “That way.” Eyes closed, she pointed at the source of that contact, the fuzzy, rich, tactile sense of Tania.

Kyros grunted. “You sure? ID is a luxury liner. You maybe feelling that?”

“No.”

“Well, at least Security won’t be combing the tourist track. Not as much anyhow. Although if that’s really them, then maybe a Security hit or two wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

Ahni kept her eyes closed, focusing on the magnet-tug of Tania ahead.

”You’re right. It’s not a liner.” Kyros laughed dryly. “That was a cute trick, using the tourist trail to slip down inside Platform orbit. He gambled that nobody inside would look our direction, but heck, most of the ‘windows’ in the Platforms are fake anyway. The sun could go nova and you wouldn’t know till the wave front fried you.”

A big patch of hull went transparent. There it was, straight ahead, a big chunk of rock, gray and battered in the harsh light from Sol. It didn’t look big until you spied the small ship anchored to it, pushing it along.

“That’s a tug,” Kyros said absently. “Moves the balloons around once the miners drop ’em, moves the barges around, in Platform orbit. Lots of power, not a lot of size. Sort of a big engine with a pilot onboard. No frills. They’ll brake, I guess, using the bulk of the rock to keep Dragon Home here from noticing that kind of hard burn this close. I guess they’ll bail out before they get into the atmosphere too far, use escape pods, probably and have somebody pick ’em up. Let the rock and tug go down on their own from there on out. Time to suit up, girl. Just in case.” He pulled a slick wad of fabric from a net and tossed it in her direction.

Ahni caught it. “Won’t somebody see them and shoot them down?” She started pulling on the vacuum suit. The flimsy, thin feel of the nano-fabric made her skin crawl, never mind that she knew it could do the job. “Somebody has to notice something this big falling out of the sky.”

“Oh sure.” Kyros pulled his own suit on and sealed it in about thirty seconds. “But the rock jocks won’t have time to intercept beefore they get into atmosphere and start to heat up.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Call in the marines.” Kyros touched shimmering icons, his scarred fingers glowing faintly blue-green in the light from Earth. “I’m sending a mayday. That’ll get us some body’s attention, probaably on Dragon Home since we’re in its shadow. Good thing you speak Chinese. Let’s hope Mr. Chairman remembered to tell the crew manning communications that we might be yelling for help here.”

“Kyros, she knows we’re here.”

“The tug couldn’t have seen us yet. Here we go.” He broke off as the holo of a Cantonese-faced woman in a Dragon Home appeared in the cabin in front of them and briskly asked Kyros what his problem was.

Before Ahni could speak, the woman’s face fractured into a milllion bits of light, then winked out.

“Damn, damn, damn.” Kyros swiped a fist through the empty holofield. “Tugs don’t have that kind of hardware. Somebody thinks over there. You’re right. They did see us. They’ve got a tight beam silencer like the pirates use and they just wrecked our communications. They want to make sure we don’t tell anybody.”

Incoming. A voice spoke urgently. Three minutes to impact. Evasive maneuver initiating now. Ahni grabbed for the nets as the ship shied like a frightened horse, then veered again. Evasion failure, clossing, four minutes to impact.

“Four?” Kyros looked baffled. “They’re slowing down?”

Hello, Ahni. Tania’s sultry voice filled the cabin. I’m controlling the missiles. You have one minute to climb into an escape pod. I have just sent a nav-file to the ship-mind. Have your pods set it as the default and I’ll pick you up. Do anything else and I’ll hole your pods. Your ship is gooing to die and if you wish to remain on board, that is your choice.

Kyros swore softly in a language Ahni didn’t recognize. Then he grabbed her arm, released her webbing with a practiced wrench. “Let’s go.” He hauled her with him across the cramped space, slapped a palm against the hull. The hull melted open to reveal two narrow, padded spaces. A plastic bubble seemed embedded in the top of each. Escape pods. She had seen vids on the climber ride up about how to use them if needed.

”The helmet seals to your suit automatically,” Kyros was saying.

A blinking red light on a tiny control screen bothered her.

“That says the bitch really did ram a download into my system. Let’s hope it takes us somewhere besides the sun.”

Ahni scrambled into the narrow space, ducking her head into the helmet, the padding pressing against her. The hull melted back into place and the padding pressed harder against her so that she couldn’t move. A sudden warmth and pressure at her neck and shoulders startled her and then a breath of cool air on her face tickled the sweaty space between her breasts. That must have been the helmet sealing into place. How much longer before they ejected? She stilled a sudden wild urge to struggle, claw at the padding. Summoned Pause until her heart rate began to slow. Felt a prick on her throat.

Oh yeah. She had forgotten. The pods put you out until you were picked up. “No,” she said sharply, but the pod didn’t respond.

Vibration shivered through her and a sudden rush of acceleration made her think of the giant roller-coaster in the huge floating amusement park in the bay off of Hong Kong. Nothing to see. Gentle, directionless light filled her helmet space, and the injection caught her like an unexpected roller on a flat beach, sweeping her up and over and away down a long dark tunnel.

SHE WOKE FROM dark things that leered at her just out of sight. Blinked crusted eyes, smelled metal and sweat and…

Remembered missiles, the pods, the needle prick as the pod anaesthetized her. Her throat itched where the needle went in. She tried to rub it, tried to sit up, couldn’t bring her arms up. Netting held her fast.

She twisted, looking for Kyros in a moment of panic. Found him next to her, his wrists and ankles bound with webbing, both of them held to the wall by a cargo net. His eyes were closed, but he was pretending unconsciousness.

Xai and Tania hung in hammocks beside them in the tiny cabin.

As if Tania felt her gaze, she released the webbing and pulled herself around to face Ahni.

Ahni closed her eyes, summoning control. When she opened them, Tania floated in front of her, a handful of centimeters away. The familiar scents of ginger and coconut made her shiver.

“I wish you had listened to me,” Tania said sadly. “Why did you have to get mixed up with this?”

“I don’t understand.” She looked beyond Tania, found Xai grinning at her. “How did you get involved in this? You’re no Gaiist.”

”No, but we do share some goals.” His grin broadened. “I told you our father is never going to see me as anything but a spare part, and as long as he functions, I’ll sit on the shelf. I’ve been keeping an eye on the bio-tech research–the stuff that doesn’t come out in the media. The high-end private labs are on the verge of a breakthrough, Little Sister. By making use of stem cell implantation and a little genen retrofitting, you can replace worn out parts and keep those telomeres from measuring out the end of days. Within a decade, our esteemed father will have the option of living forever. I suspect he will embrace that option.” Xai’s grin had the look of a tiger’s hungry snarl. “What does that mean for the spare part on the shelf, Little Sister? Do you have an answer for that?”

“Do you have to have it all, Xai?” Ahni looked away. “Never mind. You do. You are your father, after all.”

“Yes.” Xai’s smile was pleasant, but the red churn of his emotions was not. “And let me tell you how I will get it.”

“Not from dropping a rock onto Earth,” She hooked her fingers through the cargo netting, her body language distressed, but feeling for the fastener that held the net, for a hint of weakness that would give if she braced against the wall and really pushed.

“Oh, yes. Just so, dropping a rock.” Xai chuckled. “Li Zhen made a nice ally. Talk about someone blinded by his own ambitions.” He laughed outright.”Tania introduced me to the Gaiists. You never reealized she was my lover, did you?” He grinned. “I thought not. Our mother had no problems with that arrangement.” He looked over at Tania and grinned.”The Gaiists are as power hungry as I am but it’s a big planet. They had already laid the groundwork to fear the Platforms and NYUp’s little riots brought the media in to spread the word. Now we will confirm that fear, and in the meantime destroy the World Council.” His grin broadened. “So many obstacles will be simply… removed. Even when the rock is discovered, no one will expect it to have a target. And by the time the exact trajectory is plottted, it will be too late to entirely evacuate the population of the Council Island. Our father is there. So is Li Zhen’s. I am not sure he would approve of this, but it is never wise to share the entire picture. That is best kept to oneself. In the ensuing chaos, the Gaaists are positioned to claim a very large share of political and economic power courtesy of the anti-space backlash.”

He looked like a shark about to take a belly-bite from a fat tuna.

“With the Huang money and machinery behind me, and with our mother’s help, I will be able to assume a leading role in the power vacuum left by Li Zhen’s father. She has been quietly laying the groundwork for this takeover. Li Zhen will be assassinated by a tourist crazy with grief. So he won’t be a problem.”

Our mother. Ice filled her. “I think you are wrong, Little Brother,” she said softly. “I do not think our mother will share with you.” Or anyone.

“Don’t worry about that.” Xai bared his teeth. An alarm chimed.

“Ah, rescue has arrived.” Xai scanned the icons. “I wondered if you had managed to warn anyone before we neutralized you. Or perhaps someone was watching from Dragon Home. Care to watch?” A holoimage formed against the curve of the hull, stars against blackness, the huge curve of nearby Dragon Home with its clusters of solar collectors and communication mirrors. A bright swarm of fireflies glittered against that matte black bulk, resolving slowly into a half dozen tiny oval shapes, gleaming silver and white.

Rock jocks. Just large enough for the single pilot, they picked up the system alerts and either vaporized or removed the floating trash or small rocks that threatened the Platforms and the in-system traffic. The little scooters converged on the tug like a swarm of bees in the holo image, veering off suddenly.

“Either somebody warned ’em or they saw me blow the miner.” Xai was smiling gently.”They underestimate. Ah.”

The scooters exploded in an expanding wave of small bright, brief suns. In seconds, the holo showed nothing but a scatter of fine glitter as bits of the machinery caught the sun’s light.

Ahni looked away, sickened by the creamy satisfaction on her brother’s face. In an instant she was swept back to a hot, humid afternoon before the season’s first monsoon. She had come upon her brother squatting at the edge of the tide pools, watching a fish flop out its life on the hot rocks. He had flicked it into the water as soon as he had seen her, but she remembered his expression in the instant before he heard her.

“There are some very nasty little booby traps out in the Belt.” Xai chuckled. “That’s not a nice place, is it, miner? You can stop pretending to be unconscious. The hibernation drug in the pod is very precisely calibrated to wear off when the unit is opened.”

”We found your blood in that private cabin where you were supposed to have been kidnapped.” Ahni looked at her brother cold with horror. “It was your blood, your skin on the ropes. The forensics people said you had been beaten.”

“Oh yes.” Xai grinned. “Can’t fool a forensic sweep. I was there. I paid one of my better operatives to play the role of interrogator.” Xai’s grin was cold as ice. “He enjoyed it a little too much. But I suppose that added a bit of verisimilitude.”

“Someone was in that personal shuttle… when it blew.”

“That was him.” Xai’s grin widened. “He didn’t even suspect it when I put my hand on his shoulder. I woke him up once I had him strapped into the pilot seat, just used a local motor-blocker to keep him from messing things up. I told him just what was going to happen. If he hadn’t had so much fun, I’d have let him sleep through it.” Xai laughed softly, his perfect teeth just showing. “But instead he got to sit there and count the minutes and know about all that plastic stashed in the tail. I put a beacon on him, so I could listen to him.” He licked his lips.

Ahni turned away, her belly twisted with nausea. Realized Tania was looking at her with amused pity.

Rage rose up in her like lava and she wrestled it down.

“We’ll be entering atmosphere in fifteen minutes.” Tania waved at a shimmer of holographic data readouts floating in front of her, scattering the icons into glittering dust.

“That’s when we bail and leave you to your fate.” Xai chuckled.

“When you develop a good method, don’t change it. You’ll get a nice ride… until the tug melts down in reentry. You know, there’s a slight chance that the rock might actually impact whole.”

”Who’s staying behind to bring it down on the Council’s head?” Kyros opened his eyes. “I thought that was part of your plan?”

“We don’t need to stay for that.” Xai shrugged. “Auto control will take it in on target.”

“Who’s your expert?” Kyros sneered. “Auto won’t last that long.”

Ahni caught a flicker of emotion from Tania.

”You’re staying, Xai.” Ahni didn’t look at Tania, but her skin crawled at Tania’s response. “Didn’t Tania tell you? You’re going to ride it in.”

“Oh yes.” Tania smiled at Ahni, her eyes windows into an endless dark. “How else can 1 atone for wounding Gaia? She will forgive me and welcome me into Her arms. I had the tug retrofitted so that it can survive reentry. I will make sure that it comes down on the Council island. We have all our people in place.” She smiled a dreamy smile that raised the hair on Ahni’s neck. “Within a month of that impact, we will very quietly control a near majority of world politics. Not openly, you understand. But we will be in control. Then we can begin to make the world in Her image. Once the population is sufficiently reduced, we will turn Her world into the Garden it once was.”

“Feel free.” Xai gave Tania a brief look over his shoulder. “How noble of you.” He turned back to the controls. “Takes that last little margin of uncertainty right out of the equation. Give my thanks to your Goddess when you meet her, Tania.”

“I will.” Tania smiled and turned, her motions as smoothly conntrolled as an orbital native, stretching gracefully and silently across the meter of space between them. Xai started slightly as he felt the cool touch of her fingers on his neck, started to turn, to ask her what she wanted. Then the drug patch stuck to her fingertip finished dumping its contents into his bloodstream and his eyes rolled up in his head, limbs loosening, a single crystal bead of saliva detaching itself from his half-open mouth to drift across the cramped cabin. Tania maneuvered him neatly into his webbing and pulled it tight around him, closing his half -open eyes with one fingertip.

“I loved you, Ahni. But he was useful. And he confused sex with submission. She will appreciate his sacrifice, willing or not.” Tania turned her smile on Ahni. “And yours as well. We will meet Her together.”

“Tania?” Ahni said softly. “It was my mother who came between us.”

“I know.” Tania’s gaze shifted for a mere instant. “But I told you… we found later that we had similar agendas, she and I. She is a latecomer to the Goddess’s arms, but she is a willing one. She will playa very important role in our future.”

“She will betray you, too. Eventually.” Ahni worked her hand through the netting, touched Tania’s arm and felt her response.”You should have been more open with me. In my apartment.” She stroked Tania’s arm. Slowly. Sensuously. “I have always been afraid of the strength of… our feelings for each other. I have been wrong. I know that now. I would like… to ride this rock down with you. Willingly. I — don’t know Her yet, but I — I will trust you, Tania.” Her voice caught on those final words. Tears burned her eyes and they were real. She closed her eyes, drew a shuddering breath as Tania brushed away her tears, scattering crystal droplets.

The net relaxed.

Ahni untangled herself from it, felt Tania’s arms around her. Love, she thought hazily. Perhaps the sharpest weapon of all… Gently, she turned to meet Tania’s lips, shivering as Tania’s hand caressed her back, sliding her palms up Tania’s arms, over her taut shoulders, up the long curve of her neck to cup her face, their mouths together.

… and the most treacherous.

Ahni discharged the entire power core for her bioware into Tania’s nervous system. It was the same energy that Li Zhen had used to punish her for taking his son, but at a much higher intensity. Tania spasmed, back arching, arms and legs straightening violently, a hoarse cry erupting from her throat as all her muscles convulsed. She hit the wall, rebounded, slack and drifting rearward, her eyes half open, whites gleaming.

Throat clenched tight, Ahni caught her and awkwardly webbed her into the other hammock. Flung herself across the space to release Kyros. He pushed across to the control field, making noises to himself as he called up holos, ran a flickering progression of images through the air in front of him. “Damn, they’ve jerked this old boat around. I don’t know if I–okay, yeah, that’s what I need.” Fingers darting and stabbing he swore for a handful of seconds. “We can break this rock out of orbit and jack it into a trajectory that should take it sunward and miss the Platforms with luck. That gives time for the rock jocks to rope it and put some navigation power aboard if it’s needed. Or bust it up.”

“Do it!”

“Go check the escape pods for this boat, will you? We can’t reuse ours.”

She made her way over to the red escape icons glowing above the now-familiar slots. But when she touched the door, nothing happened. Neither opened. When she touched the small inset control screen it remained dark. “Any reason I can’t open them?”

“Main control say’s they’re working.” Tension edged Kyros’s words. “Try again. They’re never locked.”

“The control screens are dark.”

“Damn.” He pushed over to join her, tried the screens, then the doors, then the screens again. “Neat little trick that.” He glared at Tania’s unconscious form. “She was making sure her Goddess was going to get her sacrifice for sure. Too bad we couldn’t watch your brother’s face when he went to bail out and realized there was no way to bail.” Kyros laughed sourly. “Course we’re stuck, too. Oh well.” He pushed back to the control holos. Red glowed among the icons.

Not good.

“We have to push so hard so fast that the engines probably can’t take it. We could slow it down and maybe delay reentry until the marines arrive, but we’ve got no communication, and we don’t know they’re coming.” He looked at Ahni. “Here are our options. We delay, hope Li Zhen gets somebody out here to boost this thing to a higher orbit before it decays into atmosphere. But we only have enough fuel for that to slow it for about…” He glanced at the images again. “Fifteen more minutes, damn. She cut the fuel too close, probably wouldn’t had have had enough for maneuvering either. Bitch didn’t know as much as she thought she did.” He sighed. “We could end up in reentry anyway. It just depends. Or…” He looked at her. “We boost it out of orbit. But we’re here if the ship blows.”

Ahni closed her eyes. “Well, if we’re going to die, I’d rather it be for a win than a loss.”

“Me, I’d rather not die. Don’t know if that’s an option.” He stabbed fingers into the field, scattering icons like drops of blood.

A shiver started deep in Ahni’s bones. It grew stronger, spreading through her flesh until her teeth began to vibrate. It had the feel of nails dragged across a blackboard, but the blackboard was the inside of her skin.

“We’ll make a safe orbit in seven more minutes.” Kyros had to shout to be audible over the wail of the ship’s dying. “I’ll cut the power as soon as I can.”

They weren’t going to make it. She could feel the end coming in the increasing shriek of the tug’s power plant. It wasn’t so much audible noise as something she felt, as if the very atoms of the universe were being pulled apart here, stretched slowly to the breaking point.

The hull melted.

For an instant she stared at it dumbly, wondering why the exploding atmosphere hadn’t dragged her through the hole yet.

“Go, go, let’s go!” Kyros slammed into her. “I’ve got the system locked in, it’ll push until it blows.”

Another ship? Docked to them? She dove through the openning, the death scream of the tug vibrating through her bones. Kyyros shot through on her heels. Ahni found herself staring through the contracting hole in the hull, at her brother and Tania. Still alive.

She pushed off, would just make it through before the hull closed, traced her trajectory coolly, a part of her mind screaming no, ignoring it.

Kyros yanked her backward, wrenching every joint in her body. “No way.” His thumb pressed into the angle of her jaw, compressing the artery as his other arm clamped around her. She struggled as darkness closed in over her head.

SHE SWAM BACK to consciousness still fighting him. Bit. Because nothing else much was working yet.

“Damn it, ouch! Ahni, it’s me.”

Dane’s voice. She focused her eyes. He looked awful, gaunt face, shadowed eyes.

But alive. She clung to him as his arms went around her. “The tug?” she whispered.

“It blew. Four minutes after I picked you up.”

She closed her eyes, his arms tight around her. Her tears floated away, tiny perfect spheres. In the sterile womb of this ship they were nothing but waste water. She squeezed the last waste droplets of tears from her eyes, “How did you get here?” She drew a breath. “Did they let you go?”

“Li Zhen busted me out, I think. He… put a beacon on you.”

“I know.” She struggled to catch his meaning.

“It was really a link. He hacked your bioware. You were transmitting.”

She stared at him, openmouthed. Hacked. Couldn’t happen. That meant that everything she had seen, heard… it had all gone over the link. To Li Zhen.

“He put it live on the media-net.” Dane let his breath out slowly. “Upside and downside. I carried the booster. A little reality show,” he said bitterly. “Great ratings, I’ll bet. I’m sorry, Ahni. There wasn’t any other way to do it.”

Her brother. Her mother’s role in this. Her kiss.

”You’re right.” She looked up to meet his eyes. “What other way was there to play it?”

“You want to talk to your ship?” Kyros interrupted. “We’ve got a CSF escort with an arrest warrant for all of us, in case you thought we were the good guys here. You want to explain to Miriam why she shouldn’t fire on ’em?”

“She won’t fire on a CSF ship. She just doesn’t like you and never has.” Dane pulled Ahni close, his lips brushing her forehead. Pushed gently away, without so much as stirring her from where she floated. “I’ll surrender.”

Arrest warrant. Some heroic welcome. Ahni let her breath out and looked around the neat ship interior.

It occurred to her that her father would perhaps have rather died on the Council Island than have the world get to witness the details of his clone-son’s betrayal. “What is the arrest warrant for?” she asked as she pulled herself forward to where Dane and Kyros hovered.

“Most likely escape,” Dane said mildly.

“Nah. It’s for trying to drop a rock on Earth.” Kyros rolled his eyes. “Go figure.”