Century Rain

FORTY

By the time they were about to pass through the hole that Niagara had punched into the ALS, the debris cloud had completely cleared. The wound remained raw and bright, spilling a faint shaft of re-radiated golden-white light back into space, twinkling off the few remaining shards of hot matter still hanging around the impact site.

“That light has the spectrum of solar radiation,” Tunguska said, when they were falling down the column of light. “It’s a perfect match for the Sun, at the limit of our instruments.”

The transition between outside and inside happened in an eyeblink. One kilometre of shell thickness was nothing compared to their speed. One moment the surface of the sphere was swelling larger, with the wound growing rapidly from a searing, white-rimmed eye to a swallowing mouth… and then they were through, falling towards the heart of the ALS.

Tunguska’s sensors took immediate stock of the interior. Behind his ship, the receding wound embraced a circle of the perfect blackness of interstellar space. It was rimmed with bright, agonised matter on this side as well. But instead of the quilted blue-grey material of the outer skin, the inner surface of the ALS was made of something far stranger; something far less susceptible to easy interrogation by Tunguska’s instruments.

They had always known that the inner surface of the shell had to function as a kind of near-perfect planetarium, projecting an image of the sky that would have been seen from the original Earth. There were false stars, their brightness and colours reproduced precisely, aligned into exactly the right constellations that the inhabitants of E2 had learned to expect. Some fraction of the stars must even have been programmed for variability—to dim and brighten according to intricate astrophysics-rich algorithms. They were all required to move with respect to each other, following the slow, stately currents of proper motion, or the wheeling gyre of binary orbits.

Beyond the stars, there were galaxies, vast shoals of them in every direction. Each and every galaxy had to stand up to the same scrutiny as the stars. Novae and supernovae had to flare and die… whether they were noticed or not.

It was awesome and astonishing. It was also doomed to failure, for no such tapestry could ever have withstood arbitrarily close study using the kind of astronomical tools available in Auger’s era. Even a simple interplanetary probe would have eventually sniffed out something odd about those stellar positions… just before it dashed itself to atoms by colliding with the inner surface of the shell. No: it wasn’t perfectly foolproof, nor must that ever have been the intention of its builders. It was good enough to withstand examination using the crude science of Floyd’s time, but it was never the intention that the shell should form an utterly convincing illusion. Sooner or later, it must have been assumed, the inhabitants of E2 were bound to discover the truth. The function of the ALS was to protect them from outside interference until precisely that moment. After that—at which point they would probably direct their energies into breaking through the shell—they were on their own.

But there was already something amiss with the view of the heavens around the inside edge of the open wound. For thousands of kilometres in all directions, the stars were distorted, elongated and spermlike, their stretched, tapering tails pointing like accusing fingers towards the hole Niagara had made.

“The zone of distortion is spreading,” Tunguska said. “Frankly, they’re going to have a hard time not noticing that on the Earth, even if they somehow missed the initial flash.”

“What will they make of it?” Auger wondered.

“I don’t know. But if an inexplicable astronomical puzzle is all they have to worry about by the end of the day, they’ll be doing rather well.”

“Can we shoot that shuttle down yet?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “But I’m ready to squeeze a little more out of the bleed-drive. If my estimates are good, we still have a chance of intercepting her before she hits the atmosphere.”

“Don’t hesitate, Tunguska.”

“I won’t. There is something I feel I should mention, though. It’s just an observation, and it may be misleading.”

Auger didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Tell us anyway.”

“The wound appears to be healing itself. The aperture was more than a hundred kilometres across immediately after the detonation of the Molotov device.”

“And now?”

“A shade under a hundred. It may not mean anything—it’s rather difficult to define the precise boundary—but I thought I should draw it to your attention.”

“Keep an eye on it,” she said. “I don’t want that damned thing closing on us while we’re still inside.”

“I’ll have a better idea of the closure rate in a little while,” Tunguska said.

“Squeeze as much speed out of this thing as you can. Then we can all go home.”

For the next hour, they pushed deeper into the ALS, following the lone echo of Niagara’s shuttle. All attempts at communication were ignored, although that did not stop Tunguska from making repeated offers of negotiation. He was, he said, prepared to consider any proposal that would stop the deployment of Silver Rain. But no acknowledgement of his messages ever returned.

Despite the urgent need to intercept the shuttle before it reached Earth’s atmosphere, Auger could not help marvelling at the experience of being inside the ALS sphere and seeing her world as it should have been. This was an Earth that had never known nuclear war, or runaway climatic catastrophe, or smart weather, or a Nanocaust. The sight of it made her want to weep. No image had ever come close to the heartbreaking beauty of this small blue world, a beauty all the more acute now that she knew how exquisitely fragile it was. It was the beauty of a butterfly’s wing.

E2 hung at the exact geometric centre of the ALS. Orbiting it, or at least moving in a convincing simulacrum of Newtonian motion, was what appeared to be an identical copy of the Moon. Auger presumed it had been captured in the same quantum snapshot as E2, but it would take close-up investigation to verify this. The Moon could just as easily be a mocked-up representation, imbued with enough detail to fool surface observers and enough gravity to lift tides on the Earth. The remaining contribution to the tides—the solar component—must have been achieved through some deft trickery of gravitational manipulation—invisible small orbiting masses, perhaps—for there was no sun. Instead, there was a golden-yellow disc of exactly the right temperature and apparent brightness shining out from the inner surface of the sphere. But it was only designed to look convincing from the vantage point of the Earth’s surface, and close to they saw how its shape was distorted by the sphere’s concavity.

“There’s your source of solar-spectrum radiation,” Auger said. “From outside the sphere we were seeing its light, leaking through the hole. How long do you think it would have taken Floyd’s people to figure that out?”

“Even without spaceflight, they’d have begun to notice some puzzling things about it within a few decades,” Tunguska said. “In our timeline, a great deal of attention was focused on measuring the circularity of the solar disk, since it turned out to be a way of discriminating between competing cosmological models. With that kind of attention, the illusion probably couldn’t have been sustained for long.”

“Or maybe they’d just pick another theory,” Auger said.

“Perhaps.”

“Anyway, Floyd’s world hasn’t achieved the science ours did even by nineteen fifty-nine.”

“They could quickly make up lost ground,” Tunguska said. “And then they might put up too much of a fight if someone attempted to do what Niagara is attempting now.”

“Which means that whoever was working behind the scenes had serious co-ordination,” Auger said. “Enough to change the outcome of the Second World War before it became truly global. And whoever did that is still down there.”

“You think they deserve retribution, don’t you?” Tunguska asked.

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“They stopped a war in which millions died in our timeline, Auger. No Final Solution, no Russian Front, no Hiroshima, Nagasaki.”

“They didn’t stop that war out of the goodness of their hearts, Tunguska. They stopped it because it interfered with their plans for global genocide. And now I think they should pay for it.”

“Well, we’re almost within attack range, if that’s any consolation. That little shuttle is having to decelerate in preparation for atmospheric flight. If it released Silver Rain at this speed, even the ablative jackets wouldn’t protect the nanomachinery at the heart of the weapon. There’s some uncertainty, but I can begin attempting the strike within three minutes.”

“What about the missiles you promised us?” she asked.

“Nearly ready. Patience, please.” She heard a note of diffidence in his voice. “Concerning the other matter…”

“What other matter?”

“The healing of the wound. I’ve been keeping a close eye on it and I can now state with some authority that—”

“Is there still time for us to get out?”

“Yes, allowing for—”

“I don’t need anything else to worry about, Tunguska.”

“Good. In which case I won’t mention the bleed-drive.”

Tunguska was as good as his word. Barely two minutes later, Auger felt the slight change in the ship’s attack posture that indicated it was bringing its beam weapons to bear. When they powered up and fired, discharging in timed salvos, she felt the surging and ebbing of massive accumulators somewhere in the ship’s gut.

“How long can we sustain this fire rate?” she asked.

“For as long as it takes. Energy isn’t a problem.”

The shuttle had anticipated a beam-weapon strike—Tunguska said this was almost inevitable—but it was limited in its defensive options. It could drop reflective chaff by shedding discrete layers of its hull, but not indefinitely. It could change its course randomly, making it more difficult for the beams to lock on to the bright aura of its drive flame—which was pointed away from them now, but still visible against the background of E2 and the inner surface of the ALS sphere—but every course correction cost it some of its hard-won lead. For the pilot of the shuttle, it was the trickiest of trade-offs to balance.

“Whatever Niagara does,” Tunguska said, “it will hurt him in the long run. All my simulations now point to a successful interception before he’s within drop-range of the atmosphere.”

There was something about the cocksure confidence of that statement that gave Auger goose pimples. It was like an invitation to fate.

That was when the bleed-drive chose to fail again.

She felt the ship stall in its chase, suddenly losing ground on its victim. The drive stuttered, pushing hard and then cutting out. The cushioning embrace of the ship did its best to smooth over the sudden changes in acceleration, but Auger still felt several lapses in consciousness as the blood in her brain sloshed around like mud in a bucket.

“Tunguska…” she gasped, when she was able, “maybe you want to rethink…”

The ship was in free fall. The drive had died completely, shut down by emergency control systems before instabilities opened a drooling mouth in the flesh of space itself.

Over the next several minutes, repair estimates began to trickle in. The drive was still fixable, but the patches put in place since the missile attack had now outlived their usefulness. It would take many hours before even a moderate push of one gee could be achieved.

Sensing that its charges no longer needed to be buffered against the jolts and swerves of combat, the ship relinquished its hold on Floyd, Auger and Tunguska, the white cocoons collapsing back into the familiar forms of table, chairs, floor, walls and ceiling.

“I hope,” Auger said, “that you have a backup plan, Tunguska. Because otherwise we’re screwed.”

Tunguska, to his credit, still managed to retain a credible gloss of authority. “I’ve already reviewed the options,” he said. “You’ll be pleased to hear that there is still a way of intercepting that spacecraft.”

“The missiles?” Floyd asked.

“No.” He gave a self-critical grimace. “Well, yes. But it’s not quite that simple.”

Auger looked at Floyd and rolled her eyes. “It never is. What’s your plan?”

“The missiles don’t have the range from here. My internal repair factories have license to manufacture almost anything except complete bleed-drive assemblies. I had to settle for small, crude fusion power plants. They’re fast and agile enough for the task and they’ll double as warheads, but only if they’re given a helping hand.”

The tone of his voice said beware. Whatever he was offering them, it was not without its costs.

“Such as?” Auger asked.

“They’ll need a delivery system. We can’t get close enough at the moment, and by the time the ship’s fixed it’ll be too late. But we still have the shuttle from the Twentieth. I had it fuelled and repaired as a matter of insurance. It’s a trivial matter to attach two missiles to it—they can grip the hull themselves, like parasites.”

“Can the shuttle make it in time?” Floyd asked.

“Just, although the margin for error is on the tight side. Someone will have to fly it.”

“Don’t you have a snake robot that can do it?” Auger asked.

“Not one that I can spare from the repair work.”

Auger made to stand. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Tunguska motioned for her to stay where she was. “When I said someone has to fly it, I meant myself.”

“There’s no reason why I can’t fly it instead,” Auger said. “Whatever knowledge you have, Cassandra can give to me.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Tunguska said.

“Why not? The machines will show me what I have to do.”

“That’s not the point. I have no doubt that they could give you the necessary competence, but it’s much better if I take the shuttle, with Floyd as a passenger.”

“I don’t follow,” Auger said.

He sighed, as if he’d been hoping that he would not have to explain. “The problem is that whoever rides that shuttle may never make it home.” He made a steeple of his fingers, slowing his voice so that every word had the measured emphasis of some terrible pronouncement. “Intercepting Niagara is still feasible, even now. But by the time the shuttle releases its missiles, it will barely have time to return to this point, let alone leave the ALS completely. The wound is closing. It will be a very, very close-run thing, even if the wound does not quicken its rate of closure. Which I cannot guarantee.” He took a deep breath and looked at Auger. “Which is why you cannot be on that shuttle. You will remain here, ready to depart the ALS as soon as the bleed-drive can be restarted.”

“And you?”

“I will ensure that the missiles find their mark. When that is done, I will return Floyd to the surface of E2.”

“And then?” she said.

“I will evaluate the situation. If circumstances permit, I will attempt to return to this ship. If they don’t… well, I can’t leave the shuttle lying around in the ALS, where Floyd’s people might find it. I’ll arrange for its disposal. It shouldn’t be difficult.”

Auger wanted to make sure that she understood exactly what he meant. “Kill yourself, in other words.”

“If you must put it so bluntly.”

She shook her head. “That’s not how it’s going to happen. You already said I could fly the ship as well as you.”

“What I said—” Tunguska began.

“I’m taking Floyd home,” she said. “I dragged him into this, so I can damned well drag him out of it.”

Floyd reached out and took her arm. “No. Listen to Tunguska. He’s talking a lot of sense.”

“You’d condemn him, to save me?”

“No one’s talking about condemning anyone. He doesn’t have to commit suicide. He can always keep looking for another way out.”

“Then I can do the same,” Auger said. She snapped around to the Slasher. “Get us on that ship.”

“ ‘Us?’ ”

“Floyd and me.”

“And Cassie?” he asked slowly.

“We’ve discussed the matter,” Auger said. “Cassandra wants to come along for the ride.”

Tunguska’s face formed an expression of defeat, and he shook his head. “You shouldn’t make me do this.”

“But I am.”

“I still need another twenty minutes to finish the missiles and interface them with the shuttle’s avionics. I’ve figured that time into my calculations, so use it wisely. There’s still a chance to change your mind.”

“I don’t need more time—my mind’s made up,” Auger said.

Tunguska gave a weary smile, accepting that there was nothing to be gained from further debate. “I always knew you’d want it this way,” he said. “I just had to be certain.”

“May I ask one small favour, before we say goodbye?” Floyd asked.

“If I can help, I will.”

“I need something from you. Two things, really.”

Tunguska spread his hands wide in a gesture of reasonableness. “What can I do?”

“You can make almost anything on this ship, can’t you?”

“Within limits.”

“I’m not asking for the world. I just need you to conjure up some strawberries for me.”

One corner of Tunguska’s mouth pulled up in a half-smile, as if he’d either misheard or was the victim of a joke he didn’t get. “Strawberries?”

“Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Tunguska mulled the point. “Or at least something that looks and tastes like strawberries, even if it wouldn’t be exactly the real article.”

“I’m not fussy. Can you do that in twenty minutes?”

“I can do that in five, if you want to eat them immediately.”

“They’re not for me,” Floyd said. “I don’t even like strawberries. They’re for a friend. So I’ll need them in a bag.”

“In a bag.”

“That’s right.”

Tunguska nodded, his expression grave. “And the other thing?”

“I need some of that magic medicine of yours.”

“UR?”

“Someone I know is dying. It’s the same lady who wants the strawberries.”