Infinity Beach

21

In the morning, they searched the vessel again, all three floors, the engine room, the lander, and every other space they could think of. Solly removed the various access panels and peered back among the cables and circuits. They found nothing. “It’s hard to believe there’s anything on board that shouldn’t be here,” he said.

Reluctantly, she said what they both must have been thinking: “Maybe we shouldn’t go home.”

They were sitting in the wingback chairs in the briefing room. It was late afternoon; both were exhausted from the long hunt and its accompanying frustrations. “Kim,” said Solly, “we can interrupt the flight anytime and call for help. But then what do we do? If it could get aboard without our seeing it, it’ll do the same to any rescue ship.” He rubbed his eyes. “We’ve done everything we can to ensure there’s no intruder. So either we go home, or we sit out here somewhere until the food runs out.”

During the search, Kim had sensed that he was becoming skeptical of her story. In full-daylight mode, the Hammersmith’s rooms and corridors seemed less threatening and the danger more remote. The choices, should they determine they actually had an intruder, were stark. Best to write the incident off as the result of dim lighting, heated passions, and too much alcohol. “Look,” he said, “at worst, all we have to do is maintain control of hypercomm, don’t let it transmit anything, and we don’t have to worry. No matter what else happens.”

“Are we sure we can do that?”

“I can take a wrench to it if I have to.”

The return trip remained somber. Kim kept their bedroom door closed, for whatever good that might do. It was, she complained to Solly, like sleeping in a haunted house. The days passed without incident, but Kim knew the thing was there, drifting through coils and corridors, just outside the range of vision. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of it, the eyes sometimes formed of light from a lamp, of steam from a shower. There were movements in the dark, the sense of a cold current brushing her ankle, the sound of whispering in the bulkheads. Even the murmur of the ship’s electronics occasionally sounded malevolent.

If Solly picked any of this up, he said nothing.

Unavoidably, the sex became infrequent. When it did occur, it was distracted, stealthy, hurried, as though there were others in the ship who might happen on them at any moment.

The spontaneity drained away. During what she had already begun to think of as the good old days, encounters might begin and eventually be consummated anywhere in the ship. Now, wherever they might start, they concluded behind the closed doors of their sleeping compartment. After Kim had put on the light and inspected it.

She felt exposed and vulnerable when they were both asleep. But when she broached the subject to Solly he looked so dismayed that she did not push for a watchstanding system.

He must be thinking of her as a frightened child, wondering what sort of relationship he’d got himself into. But she felt like a frightened child. Were their places reversed, had it been Solly who was seeing things in empty corridors, she would certainly be rethinking the relationship. She feared she might lose him over this, and that might be the worst of it. But she couldn’t help herself. There was a hazard, and Solly didn’t entirely believe her.

She grew resentful, of Solly, and of her own fears. And she acquired an unrelenting hatred for the thing that had taken up residence with them. She waited, and literally prayed, for it to show itself in some substantive way.

Solly’s efforts to get the AI back online produced no discernible results. Occasionally there were nonsense voice responses, asserting that passengers should prepare for acceleration, or that the food preparation system was suffering from an overload and needed a new conduction unit. It suggested course changes and adjustments in mission parameters and wished them good morning at all hours.

“We need somebody who knows what he’s doing,” Solly grumbled, but he never stopped trying.

Without Ham, he had to get his hands dirty on occasion. He found himself performing routine duties such as managing power flow adjustments. Because some systems had gone down with the AI, he wasn’t necessarily alerted when malfunctions happened, nor was there a system to tell him the nature of the problem. So when internal communications crashed, he needed several hours and a lot of crawling around on hands and knees to locate and replace a faulty relay. Self-test procedures run regularly by the jump engines developed an aberration that periodically set Klaxons sounding throughout the ship. He couldn’t figure that one out at all and simply shut the alarms down, hoping the engines wouldn’t develop a fatal flaw in the meantime.

Solly commented that he was learning a lot this trip.

Kim helped wherever she could, which wasn’t often. Electronics was not her forte, but she asked questions and she too was learning.

The closest they came to a serious problem arose during the third week when the Klaxons sounded one night at three A.M., signaling that the oxygen-nitrogen mix was exceeding parameters. Solly didn’t know what to do about that, and the alarms continued sporadically during the next few hours, warning of a deteriorating condition. He growled that for all they knew the problem was with the alarm system rather than life support, but he continued working on it, replacing every part he could reach until finally the clamor stopped.

Kim’s normal high spirits never returned. She no longer wandered through the ship on her own, but rather stayed close to Solly. She read more extensively than ever before, mostly books and articles in her specialty, but also novels and histories and even Simon Westcott, the classic second century philosopher who’d tried to explain how consciousness had developed in a mechanistic universe.

Occasionally, when she was alone, she caught herself speaking to the visitor. “I know you’re there,” she told it, keeping her voice down so Solly wouldn’t overhear.

“Why don’t you show yourself?”

Toward the end of the voyage, the debate went underground, where it simmered like a waste-disposal system occasionally leaking noxious fumes. There was simply nothing more to say. During the last three weeks, Kim saw nothing out of the ordinary. She tried to talk herself into dismissing the apparition, or at least into locking it away in a corner of her mind where it could cause no disruption, much as she had the earlier experience at Remorse. But then she’d been able to get away from the Severin Valley. Now she was bolted in with the thing.

So there’d been an uneasy moratorium, a studied avoidance of the subject. Conversation necessarily became guarded rather than informative, ceremonial rather than intimate. It was like having a rhinoceros on board, whose presence no one wanted to recognize.

On the last day, however, as they approached jump status, Solly broached the subject. “I’m sorry the flight turned out the way it did,” he said.

His tone suggested he wasn’t holding her aberration against her. “It’s not your fault,” she said, carefully restraining the anger that began to stir.

“We need to decide whether we’re going to report the incident.”

Translation: Do you want to admit to having a hallucination?

They were both in the pilot’s room. Everything was in order, and the clock was counting down. Solly was waiting for the status lamps to light, after which he would push the EXECUTE key, and they would leap across into their own universe.

“Got a question,” Kim said, casually.

“Go ahead.”

“When we use the hypercomm transmitter, how do we know it’s in use?”

His jaw tightened. “Could you rephrase that, Kim? How could I not know I’m using it?”

She tried again. “When we’re communicating via hypercomm, does something light up on the status board?”

“Right here.” He pointed at a pair of lamps atop the communication console. “Orange means Ham’s begun the operation, that a channel is being opened, and green means it’s okay to talk.”

“Can you test it?”

“Test what?”

“Test the system. See if it works.”

“Kim, why?” He looked puzzled.

“Humor me, Solly. Please.”

Ordinarily he would simply have asked Ham to open the channel. Now it was necessary to pull the control board across his lap, consult his manual, press some keys.

“Well?” she asked.

“That’s odd.”

No lights.

“Problem?”

“The status lamps should have lit up,” he said.

“So as things are now, if someone were transmitting, we wouldn’t know.”

He checked the bulbs. Both were scorched. “How’d you guess?”

She shrugged. “It seemed like a possibility.”

He went back to the utility locker and returned with fresh lamps. “This has to do with the intruder, right?”

“I don’t like what’s happening, Solly.” She was suddenly desperately weary, anxious to see real sunlight again, and a real ocean. The virtual expanses of Hammersmith’s projection system just didn’t cut it. No matter how vast the stretches of sea and beach might appear, she always knew she was inside a chamber. “When do you expect we’ll be docking?” she asked.

“About six in the morning.”

It was not quite ten A.M., and they were just a few minutes from the jump. “Twenty hours?” she asked. “That seems kind of long.”

“It’s because of the time differential in hyperflight,” he said. “We never know quite where we’ll materialize. So we want to be well away from Greenway.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Check your harness.”

She could hear power gathering in the jump engines. Solly activated the external sensors and telescopes. She sat back, but kept an eye on the hypercomm lamps.

As they clicked down to one minute, Solly sighed. “You really expect something to happen, don’t you?”

“I think something just did,” she said. “In any case, to answer your question: Yes, I think we should contact Matt as soon as we’re able. I want to tell him what’s going on.”

“So what are you going to say? That you think there’s something on board that shouldn’t be here?”

“That’s right.”

He grew somber. “If you do that, we may not get home anytime within the foreseeable future. You’ll scare them out of their socks, and we’ll spend the next few years on old Hammersmith.”

“I don’t know what else to do, Solly,” she said.

The clock ran down to zero and he pressed the key.

A wave of vertigo passed behind her eyes. But she tried to control her breathing and think of other things. Like how good it had been with Solly, despite the problems. Like the fact that Emily’s body was downstairs and somebody was going to pay up for that.

The sensation passed quickly and the windows lit up with familiar constellations. Greenway and its moons appeared on one of the auxiliary screens.

“Transition complete,” he said.

Kim nodded and kept her eyes on the hypercomm lamps.

Solly opened a channel to Sky Harbor. “This is Hammersmith. Approaching on manual. Computer out. Request assistance.”

While they waited for the signal to reach Greenway, and for the controllers to respond, Solly looked over his instruments. “Everything seems normal,” he said.

Kim couldn’t sort her feelings out. She wanted the problem to go away, wanted to get home with her discovery, wanted to enjoy her accomplishment. But she also wanted to be proved right, for Solly to see that the apparition had substance. Maybe she wanted to demonstrate that to herself as well. She wanted an apology from somebody.

“Hammersmith, this is Sky Harbor.” A female voice. “We’ve been expecting you. Patrol will escort you in.” They gave Solly a course and speed.

“That doesn’t sound good,” he said.

He brought the ship around to the prescribed heading and fired the mains. A blip appeared on the long-range navigation screen. “That’ll be our escort,” he said.

“How far are they?”

“Several hours.”

Something caught Kim’s attention. A movement, a shift in the light. She looked around the pilot’s room. Nothing seemed changed.

“Problem?” Solly asked.

“Don’t know.” She reached over and touched the hypercomm lamps. They were warm. “I think they’re out again,” she said.

He frowned and tried them for himself. And then scowled.

He removed the orange lamp and held it up to his eyes. “They sure are.”

“Is there any other way to know whether we’re transmitting?”

“Yes.” He punched a button. “Patrol, Hammersmith. Do you read?”

“Hammersmith, this is Patrol one-one. Affirmative. Do you require assistance?” Male voice this time, Bondolay accent. Lots of r’s.

“Are we showing a hypercomm transmission?”

“Wait one.” He sounded as if he were being patient. Kim wiped her mouth while she waited for the response, which seemed to take an interminably long time. Then the voice was back: “Hammersmith,” he said, “that is affirmative.” He sounded puzzled. How could Hammersmith be transmitting and the pilot not know? “Is there a problem?”

“Computer is down,” Solly said, climbing out of his chair. “And we’re having some other minor malfunctions.” He signed off and left the pilot’s room in a dead run. Minutes later he was back, his face pale. “You were right, Kim,” he said. “There is something in the works and the son of a bitch is trying to talk to the folks at home.”

“The first thing it’ll do,” she said, “is tell them where Greenway is. Turn off the transmitter.”

“I just did.”

“Good.”

He opened the channel again. “Patrol, this is Hammersmith. Has the subspace transmission ceased?”

“Negative.” The voice paused. “Hammersmith, what is your situation?”

“I think we ought to tell them,” said Kim.

“That would not be a good idea. If they believed us, we might just get a missile up our tailpipe.”

“I don’t believe they’d do that.”

“Don’t be too sure. This situation has suddenly become very scary.”

Suddenly. “Solly. It’s always been scary.” She couldn’t keep the note of recrimination out of her voice.

He tried to apologize, but she brushed it away. No matter. It’s okay.

It wasn’t, of course. But deep down she felt a sense of gratification that she’d been shown to be right.

He talked to the Patrol again, detailing the mechanical problems. “This is becoming a nightmare,” he told her. Then he shut down the engines.

“You said something about taking a wrench to it,” she said.

“That’s what we have to do. But it’s on the lower level, back in the woodwork. It’ll take a half hour or more. That’s too much time.”

“So what do we do?”

“Give me a moment.” He handed her a wristlamp, told her to turn it on, and opened a closet. He vanished inside and she heard him moving things around, heard the sound of a panel sliding back, and then the room went dark. But it wasn’t like the normal darkness in the pilot’s room, where one could sit in the glow of the instrument panels. Everything died: screens, gauges, status lamps, telltales, the electronic burble of the equipment. The place had gone completely black and silent. She tried to change her position and felt herself rising out of the seat. The artificial gravity was off.

A few security lights, operating on a separate circuit, began to glow. A battery lantern snapped on behind her. “That’ll stop it,” he said.

“I hate to bring this up.” She was afloat now. “Do we still have life support?”

“No. Everything’s shut down, except the engines. They’re on a bypass. But we’ll be okay long enough to disable the transmitter.”

They switched to grip shoes and went down to the bottom floor, where long windows looked into the cargo and storage bays. The lamps threw shadows behind stocks of food, esoteric equipment that would have been used in the Taratuba mission, the recycling units, and the gravity control system. Solly opened a cabinet and picked out some tools. Satisfied, he led her toward the front of the ship.

Twin water tanks were housed forward in bays on either side of the passageway. They entered the starboard side and knelt down beside the tank. Solly anchored the lantern, which had a magnetic base, and began removing a panel.

Kim watched him work, got up, and went back into the corridor. She could see the stairway at the rear, outlined by security lights. In the launch bay, in the glow of her wrist-lamp, the lander’s cockpit looked like a fish’s head, rising through the floor. Its circular viewports stared back at her.

Solly laid the panel alongside the tank and looked inside the wall at a crawl space. “It’ll take a while,” he said, ducking into it. “I have to remove some other stuff to get at the transmitter.” He took the lantern and was gone.

The darkness pressed down on her.

She could hear the clink of Solly’s tools and the occasional scrape of metal on metal. Now and then something banged. The noise lifted her spirits. She stayed close by.

After a few minutes she heard a grunt of satisfaction. “That’ll do for the son of a bitch,” he said.

At that moment, a circle of illumination snapped on at the top of the staircase and her weight came back with the force of a blow between the shoulder blades. Although both shoes had been in contact with the deck, it was nonetheless like stepping into an unexpected hole in an unlit room. She twisted her knee and yelped. “Solly,” she cried, “warn me next time.” Her voice echoed off the walls.

“Wasn’t me,” he yelled.

Lights were coming on everywhere, in the passageway, the individual bays, even in the crawl space.

“Power’s back on!” she said.

“I can see that. This goddamn thing could have juiced me.”

She smelled something burning. Then he reappeared. “One problem settled anyhow,” he said. “Nobody’s going to communicate with anybody.”

“Solly.” She kept her voice very low. “Why’d the power come back on?”

“Somebody turned it on.” He was holding the wrench in his right hand.

“What do we do now?”

“We’re going to get rid of our visitor.”

“How do we do that? We can’t even find it.”

They returned down the corridor and stood at the foot of the staircase, looking up at the landing. The airtight door at the top was open, just as they’d left it.

“We need to get some help,” she said.

“That might not be easy. I just finished off the transmitter.”

“You mean we can’t communicate locally either?”

“Not with anybody outside screaming range. I would have just disabled the hypercomm function if I’d known how. Takes a goddamn engineer to figure some of this equipment out.”

“So what’s next?” she asked.

Solly put his arm around her and held her for a moment. “Stick with me.”

He led the way up the staircase and with noticeable reluctance put his head through the open door and looked both ways along the corridor. “Don’t see anything,” he said.

The doors to the various compartments were all closed, save for the rec room, which was always open. They peeked in, saw nothing, and climbed to the top floor.

From the pilot’s room came the quiet murmur of the instruments. Everything was back on line.

Kim was alarmed to see that the status board was blinking red, but Solly explained it was only a warning that there was no transmission capability.

The Patrol was talking to them, asking what was wrong, pointing out they were off course, urging them to respond, assuring them help was on the way. They would be alongside, they said, in two hours.

Solly went back into the closet and showed her the power cutoff. It was a long black handle. It was up, in the white area, designated ON. “That caps it,” said Solly. “We do have an intruder.”

“No way it could trip back itself?”

“No,” he said. “It’s not supposed to be possible for it to turn itself on or off.”

“Maybe,” said Kim, “we should blink our lights for the Patrol. Let them know we’ve no communications.”

“They’ll figure it out on their own.” He slumped into a seat. “It’s invisible. But it’s solid, right? It has to be. I mean, it turns handles.”

“No,” Kim said. “We know it’s physical. That’s not quite the same thing as being solid.”

“Well, whatever, it’s time to get rid of it.”

“How?”

“Easy.” He took two pressure suits out of the utility locker and handed her one. “Put this on.”

“Why? What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to blow it out the door.”

At first she didn’t know what he meant. And then she understood. “Depressurize,” she said.

“Sure. It’s the only way I know.”

“Brilliant, Solly,” she said. “I’d never have thought of it.”

He shrugged. “I saw it done in an old video.”

She stripped off her outer clothes and got into the suit. It was the first time she’d ever worn one and she needed help to secure the helmet properly. “You okay?” he asked.

She felt as if she couldn’t get enough air.

“Just relax,” he said. He did something to her backpack. “How’s that?”

Better. “Thanks.”

“It’s okay.” He showed her the controls on her gloves, how she could adjust temperature, the air mix, whatever, and pulled on his own suit while she demonstrated she knew how to handle everything. He locked down his helmet and ran a radio check.

“Now,” he said, “let’s get rid of the pest.”

They stowed their personal gear, toothbrushes, soap, clothes, commlinks. Then they walked through the ship, all three floors, opening every interior hatch, and leaving them open. When they’d finished they returned to the pilot’s room and sat down. Kim looked around, could see nothing else that required their attention. “I think we’re ready,” she said.

Solly nodded, turned off the blowers, and shut down the air supply.

Kim punched the stud on the arm of her chair, and the harness settled over her. “All set,” she said.

Solly leaned over the console and his fingers flashed across the keyboard.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I have to override the safety routines. But we’re in business now.”

The Patrol voice asked again whether Hammersmith was receiving. “Please blink your lights if you hear me,” he said. And a moment later: “We have traffic for you from the Seabright Institute. Please respond if you are able.”

“Solly,” she said, “did you hear that?”

“Business first.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Opening up.”

She heard a hatch downstairs turning on its bearings. Then a murmur that escalated rapidly into a hurricane of sound. Wind swirled around her and tried to suck her out of the chair. Loose objects sailed past.

It lasted about two minutes. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it subsided, and the ship fell silent.

“We’ve got vacuum,” said Solly.

They unbuckled and went downstairs to the air lock and looked out. Helios was behind them. The three bright stars of Orion’s Belt glittered in the night. “What do you think?” he asked.

“It should have worked. There’s no lifeform I ever heard of that can resist a total depressurization.”

“How long should we leave it open?”

“I’d give it a couple of hours. I don’t suppose you saw anything unusual go out?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

They went back to the pilot’s room where Solly blinked the running lights.

“Please inform us if you can hear this transmission,” came the reply. “One blink for yes. Two for no.”

Solly blinked once.

“Are you in imminent danger?”

Solly blinked twice. Not that it made any real difference, as far as Kim could see. She doubted they could get here any faster.

The Patrol asked whether the pilot had control of the vehicle.

Solly blinked once.

Could they go to a new course?

One blink.

They set the directed course and speed. Then they began responding to queries about Hammersmith’s condition. Finally the Patrol vessel pronounced itself satisfied there was no immediate crisis and put the Institute on the circuit.

“Hello.” It was Matt’s voice. “Solly, are you okay? Kim? Is everyone all right?”

Solly blinked once and heard the Patrol relay the answer. “Yes.”

“They tell me you’ve got problems with the radio and can’t respond.” He sounded relieved. “But they think you’re doing okay, and they’ll have you out of there pretty soon. We’re glad to see you back home. I don’t think the official powers are happy, but they’ve got their ship back. Maybe they won’t prosecute. I’m leaving in a few hours and I’ll meet you at Sky Harbor. Did you have any luck?”

“He sounds subdued,” suggested Solly. “How do you want me to answer him?”

“Tell him yes.”

Solly blinked once.

“Do you mean you found something?”

Yes.

“Intelligence?”

She was thinking this was not something they’d want to discuss in public and Matt knew it but he couldn’t restrain himself.

Yes.

“I’ll meet you when you dock.”

He signed off. “Prosecution,” said Solly, “probably depends on whether Phil is happy with the results.”

“He won’t be happy,” said Kim. “We met a celestial and we killed it.” She was quiet for a while. Then: “Why not try the AI? Let’s see if it’s back.”

“Ham,” said Solly, “are you there?”

“I’m here, Solly.”

Another good sign. Solly let out his breath. “Thank God,” he said.

“Are you fully functional, Ham?” asked Kim.

“Yes. I believe so.”

“Do you know what happened to you?”

“I was—”

“Yes?”

“–taken over—”

“Go ahead, Ham.”

“By an intelligence.”

“Artificial?”

“I do not know.”

“Is it gone now?”

“I do not detect its presence. Although I suspect it could hide itself from me if it wished.”

“What can you tell us about it?”

“It is not listed in the catalog.”

“Was it biological?” Kim was asking the questions while Solly listened.

“I don’t think so. I believe it was molecular, and that it was powered by electrical fields, possibly generated by accelerated quantum activity. It was quite a unique presence. It seems to have been designed for a specific purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“I would say to seize a starship.”

“I wonder,” said Solly, “if it was supposed to grab us before we left the Alnitak system?”

“It’s possible,” said Kim. “It would have had to be pretty quick to do that.”

“I think there was an alternate function. With respect to us.”

“And that was—?”

“To remain with the ship and inform its—” the AI searched for a word, “–inform its supervisor of our final destination.”

“Who is the supervisor?”

“I don’t know.”

“The intelligence behind this thing must be a moron” grumbled Kim. “Why make a grab instead of introducing themselves?”

“What else do you know of its physical structure?” asked Solly.

“I detected free hydrogen molecules. Methane. Oxygen. It seemed, however, not to have a coherent physical form.”

“A ghost,” said Kim.

“I do not understand the connection with folklore.”

“It’s okay,” said Solly. “Neither do we.”

“One of these things is hanging around Lake Remorse,” said Kim.

Solly nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“Hammersmith,” said the Patrol vessel, “are you currently engaged in EVA?”

Solly blinked twice. No.

“You have an open air lock.”

If it wasn’t gone by now—Solly closed up, reopened the air ducts, and started the pumps. Forty minutes later they had a green board and were able to remove the suits.

“What next?” he asked as he wriggled back into his clothes.

“Go home,” she said. “Get a message to Matt. We need the Institute to figure out a way to sweep the ship to make sure the intruder’s gone. Then we can turn over the intercepts and wait for world acclaim.”

Solly returned a simple yeah.

The Patrol vehicle was now within optical range. They watched it move from port to starboard, apparently conducting a visual inspection. It was smaller than the Hammersmith, but it looked efficient and deadly. A ring antenna rotated slowly. “Hammersmith,” they said, “we will be coming aboard. Blink once to acknowledge.”

“That’s not routine,” said Solly. “They probably have orders to take us into custody.”

“It’ll get straightened out when Matt—” A puzzled expression had appeared on Solly’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

He shushed her and cupped his ear. The engines were changing pitch. The mains grew louder and Kim sank back, was pushed back, into her seat. They were changing course. And accelerating.

“What the hell—?” Solly punched keys on the status board.

The Patrol demanded they return to base course and speed.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Don’t know. Ham, what’s happening? Ham?”

The mains were still cranking up. “We’re moving toward jump status,” Solly said.

“That goddamn thing is still here.” Kim barely breathed the words.

Solly went to manual again and pulled the emergency engine cut-off toggle. Nothing happened. They continued to accelerate.

“It’s taking the ship.” Kim felt panic rising in her belly. “Heading for home.”

“Isn’t gonna happen.” Solly went back into the closet, where she knew he was going to cut the power again.

She heard him remove the panel, heard him pull the switch. “Goddammit,” he said. “It doesn’t work. The son of a bitch has killed the circuit.”

“What can we do?” asked Kim.

He consulted the status board. “It’s going home,” he said. “Taking us with it.”

“Can we disable the engines?”

“Not if we can’t shut down the power. There’s not enough time.”

She was unbuckling. “How about hitting them with a wrench?”

“They’d probably blow on the spot. There’s a safer way.”

She followed him out into the passageway and down the stairs. “What? Do these things have a self-destruct mechanism?”

“More or less. All we have to do is cut in the jump engines prematurely. Before they’re ready. That’s instant overload. Do you have the disk?”

“What? How do you mean?”

“Blow it up, Kim. Come on, let’s go.”

He meant the intercept disk, the one with the Hunter recordings. She stopped to snatch it out of her room. “Get your commlink too,” he said.

There were a few other items as well that she’d have liked to save, but it didn’t look as if they’d have time to pack.

“Didn’t you say there was a safety feature?” she asked.

“I’ve already overridden it.” They were hurrying down to the first level.

“How do we do it without getting killed?”

“From the lander,” he said. “But we have to make this fast.”

They retrieved Emily’s body. Then Solly led the way to the launch bay and stopped in front of a control board. “Never had to do it this way before,” he said, typing in a command. Two hatches opened in the lander, one to the cockpit, the other to the lander’s cargo hold. They secured Emily in cargo and climbed into the cockpit. Solly took the pilot’s seat, and began hitting switches. Power came on. Then he turned and looked at her with a pained expression. “I forgot something,” he said. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

He squeezed her wrist and climbed out.

She watched him dash across the launch bay and out into the corridor. What could have been so important that—?

The hatch closed and clicked. She looked out across the empty bay. “Solly?”

The engine changed pitch again.

She tried to raise him on the commlink. “Where are you, Solly?”

The connecting door between the launch bay and the corridor swung shut. A ferocious fear gripped her. “Solly!”

“Kim.” His voice came from the link. “Kim, I’m sorry.”

“No!” she shrieked at him. “You can’t do this–”

“I’ve no choice, Kim. Listen to me—”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t detonate Hammersmith from the lander.”

“But you said—”

“I lied. I’m sorry, I lied. If I hadn’t you’d have insisted on staying, and I couldn’t allow that.”

“Then back off. Let the Patrol do this. They can blow the thing to hell.” She was trying to get the door open so she could get out of the lander but red lights were blinking, telling her the air pressure outside had begun to drop. Everything was sealed.

“There isn’t time, Kim. They’re not going to attack an Institute ship on our say-so. The thing’ll get away. It’ll go home with the Hammersmith and they’ll know where we live.”

“Please, Solly,” she sobbed. “Don’t do this.”

The lander was moving beneath her, slipping its moorings.

“I can’t fly this thing, Solly.”

“You don’t have to. The initial launch will get you clear. Then just tell the computer to take you to the Patrol. Or wait for them to pick you up.”

“Solly, I don’t want to live without you.”

“I know, babe. Always have.”

She banged her fists against the hatch. “No, Solly. No no no no—”

“Goodbye, Kim. Don’t forget me.”

She squeezed her eyes against the flood of tears. Engines surged. The launch gear clicked and whined. Then the lander dropped and she was out among the stars.

Another voice broke into the cockpit. The Patrol. “ Please advise, lander,” it was saying. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t do it, Solly,” she screamed. “I’m coming back. Lander, take me back to the Hammersmith.”

But a brilliant flash illuminated the cockpit. And she heard the Patrol voice saying “Holy God.”