Текст книги "The Abyss Beyond Dreams"

Автор книги: Peter F. Hamilton

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‘That can’t—’ Laura started. ‘Oh, bollocks. They couldn’t all crash.’ She gave Ayanna a desperate look. ‘Could they?’

‘They were in a thousand-kilometre orbit,’ Ayanna said. ‘We confirmed that before we entered the Forest’s temporal shift zone. I cannot imagine what kind of power could pull them out of orbit.’

‘The same power that slows time in here,’ Laura said. ‘Joey, we are slower in here. Any chance they’re all on the other side of the planet and they’re just taking a long time to track round into visual range?’

His misshapen face showed no emotion, but his thoughts dripped scorn. ‘Oh, yeah. Really never thought of that. Come on! Their spacing was equidistant round the orbital track. One of them is always in view. Most of the time, two of them are.’

‘Those spheres we tracked heading down to the planet,’ Ayanna said. ‘Perhaps they’re weapons.’

‘And we didn’t see the explosions?’ Laura asked. ‘No. Something else has happened.’

‘If they were pulled down from orbit, they’d create the devil’s own crater,’ Ayanna concluded. ‘Right now there’ll be megatons of rock vapour spewing up into the atmosphere. The planet’s entire climate system will be wrecked. Joey, any sign of that?’

The hyperspace theorist managed to blink. ‘No. But I’ll run a decent scan. Maybe they didn’t crash, maybe the ingrav held out long enough.’

‘Do it,’ Ayanna said curtly.

‘Do we tell . . .?’ Laura waved a hand at the titanic alien artefact glowing beyond the windscreen. The exopod’s strobes were still flashing regularly.

‘No,’ Ayanna said quickly. ‘Let them get back here before we hit them with this. I don’t want anything to distract them out there.’

‘Okay.’ A slow shiver ran down Laura’s spine. It seemed to generate its own chill. ‘Even if the ships were pulled out of orbit, that doesn’t explain what happened to all the drones.’

Ayanna gave a quick nod. ‘I know.’

Laura watched Ibu fit the remainder of the deep-scan packages. They started to reveal the amazing molecular substructure within the tree’s crystal edifice: millions of distinct layers interwoven in the most incredibly complex patterns. Each band possessed a different energy level, many of which dipped into negative functions.

‘This is some seriously impressive bollocks,’ Laura said faintly. Her secondary routines were trying to map the pathways which the packages were exposing, but her macrocellular clusters simply didn’t have the processing capacity to hack it. Even with Fourteen’s array working on the problem, it would take weeks. ‘And we’re only seeing a tiny fraction. The whole thing is a giant solid state circuit that manipulates negative energy – and that’s just the part I do understand. It must be generating its own valency differences, too, which is practically in the realm of perpetual motion.’

‘So there has to be a control mechanism somewhere,’ Ayanna said. ‘Perhaps a section that runs its routines?’

‘Somewhere. Yes. But we’re dealing with cubic kilometres here.’

‘Logically it would be at the centre of the bulbous section at the other end.’

‘Sure. Logically. Ibu, Rojas, are you sensing any kind of thoughts coming from the tree? They wouldn’t necessarily be as fast or even similar to ours.’

‘Sorry, Laura,’ Ibu said. ‘Nothing. My ESP can barely get a look inside the crystal, not that I understand half of what I can perceive, anyway.’

‘Okay. I’m sending you a file with the coordinates I want for the sampler modules.’

‘Laura,’ Rojas asked, ‘this is one very complex molecular structure we’re seeing in the crystal. Is sampling appropriate, do you think?

‘Appropriate?’ she spluttered. ‘This is the most incredible molecular mechanism I’ve ever seen!’

Ibu chuckled. ‘What he means is, if we start sticking sampler filaments in there, is it going to be like shoving a pin in a balloon?’

Laura took a breath to calm down. ‘I’m going to take ten grams out at the most, and none of that is coming out of the negative energy channels. Sampling isn’t going to damage anything, okay? It’s safe.’

Ayanna turned round in the pilot’s couch and raised a very sceptical eyebrow.

‘Safe,’ Laura reiterated, refusing to back down.

‘All right,’ Ibu said. ‘Applying the first module now.’

The first thing they learned was how difficult it was for the filaments to slide through the crystal surface with its enhanced atomic cohesion. ‘This might take a while,’ Laura admitted as she monitored the painfully slow progress the filament tips were making.

Ibu applied the last of the sample modules. ‘I’m going to take a look at the eggs,’ he said.

Laura expanded the optical ride he was providing, and observed him slide along the bottom of the illuminated valley. As he progressed, the harness emitted occasional puffs of vapour which glittered in the eerie light. The fold grew smaller and narrower, merging with several others as it curved about.

‘Ibu, is the light dimming?’ Laura asked. The image she was riding had been suffering an increasing number of those annoying judders as he moved along the fold, and now she was struggling to make out the fluctuating slivers of phosphorescence inside the crystal. It was as if he’d moved into shadow, which was impossible.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Why? Are the sample modules screwing with the tree?’

She pressed down on a smile. ‘No.’

‘Signal bandwidth is reducing significantly,’ Ayanna warned. ‘Ibu, you’re moving into some serious interference. Is there anything different inside the crystal?’

‘No. But I can see the globes now. It’s like . . . hell. I can’t—’

Even though her eyelids were closed, Laura wanted to squint. She could just make out the dark globes that were melded with the crystal. Riding Ibu’s optics was a portal into a world of shadow upon shadow.

‘What’s happening?’ Rojas asked urgently.

‘Nothing,’ Ibu said. ‘I just can’t use my ESP on these things, is all. It’s like they’re shielded, the way we learned to protect our thoughts. But they’re really wonderful. I know it.’

‘You mean they’re alive?’ Laura asked in alarm.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘His heart rate’s really building,’ Ayanna warned.

Laura saw him gliding up close. The image fuzzed, then stabilized. It was very hard to see anything now, just shades of dark grey. The lighter outline of Ibu’s arm slid across the image, reaching towards one of the globes.

‘Going to – make out – holding ste—’

The image vanished completely. For a second there was just some basic telemetry, then that too ended.

‘Rojas?’ Ayanna said. ‘Do you have visual on Ibu?’

‘Just. He’s close to the globes. I think—’

Ibu’s link came back up. It was weak, Laura’s u-shadow reported. Voice circuit only.

‘. . . fucking thing . . . doesn’t . . . can’t . . . hell . . . really, really can’t . . .’

‘What’s happening?’ Ayanna demanded. ‘Ibu?’

‘Stuck. It’s stuck . . . all round . . . every finger . . .’

‘What?’ Laura asked. ‘Ibu, your visual is down. We can’t see anything. What has stuck?’

‘. . . Laura, its . . . molecul . . . my hand . . . fucking hand . . . can’t move it . . .’

‘Crap,’ Laura grunted. ‘Ibu, is your hand stuck? Is that what’s happened?’

‘. . . yes . . . yes . . . yes, fucker’s got me – Solid but . . . Shit, shit, nothing . . . cutting . . . free it . . .’

Ayanna gave Laura a worried look. ‘What’s going to happen if he cuts into that thing?’

‘I don’t bloody know!’

‘Ibu, be careful,’ Ayanna said.

‘. . . gotta be fuc—’ Ibu snarled.

‘Just get your hand clear,’ Laura told him. An auxiliary display showed her the exopod was moving.

‘Rojas, what are you doing?’ Ayanna asked.

‘The man needs some help,’ Rojas replied calmly.

‘Can you give us a visual feed?’ Laura asked. She unfastened the couch’s straps and airswam until she was right up against the windscreen. The exopod’s strobes were still flashing reassuringly against the pale waves of light slithering through the tree’s crystal.

‘Exopod’s signal’s reducing,’ Ayanna warned.

‘Ibu, can you hear me?’ Laura asked.

‘. . . isn’t . . .’ Ibu’s distorted voice said.

Ayanna started typing on one of the console keyboards. ‘Lost his signal.’

‘I see him,’ Rojas said. ‘Looks like a hand and a knee are touching the globe surface. Definitely sticking to it.’

‘Just get him off the damn thing!’ Ayanna said. ‘What kind of cutters have you got on the exopod?’

‘Don’t worry; the powerblade can cut through monobonded carbon fibre. This isn’t going to be any problem.’

‘Can you get close enough to use it?’ Laura asked.

‘It’s detachable . . . if I need to . . . easily done . . .’

‘No, no, no,’ Laura exclaimed as her u-shadow showed her the exopod’s signal strength reducing sharply. She hit the windscreen angrily, and had to hurriedly grab a couch as the blow sent her flailing backwards through the air.

‘. . . that’s really awesome . . .’ Rojas’s voice had taken on a reverential tone. ‘. . . going to go out . . . with him . . .’

Ayanna’s body stiffened. ‘Rojas? Rojas, don’t leave the exopod. Do you copy?’

‘. . . closer . . .’

‘Retain line of sight! Rojas? Rojas, do you copy?’

Laura pushed herself right up to the windscreen again and stared frantically at the tip of the distortion tree. ‘I can’t see the strobes! Bollocks, the idiot’s gone down into the fold.’ The communication icon in her exovision showed her the exopod’s signal fading to zero. It ended.

‘What’s really awesome?’ Joey’s mental voice asked. ‘What was he talking about? Did he mean Ibu was cutting himself free?’

Laura gave Ayanna a guilty look, then glanced back at Joey. ‘I don’t know. Yes. Yes, that must be what he meant. We—’ The cabin lights flickered, then dimmed before coming back up to full strength.

‘These dropouts are killing our systems,’ Ayanna snapped. ‘The processors are rebooting each time, then they get hit by another surge before they’ve completed. It’s not helping.’

‘Order the Mk16bs back to the tip of the tree,’ Laura said. ‘We need to see what’s happening out there.’

‘Right,’ Ayanna gave a little nod, as if she was dazed. ‘Yes. Good.’

Laura gripped the rim of the console with one hand, and flicked several switches. A hologram projector slid out of the cabin ceiling above her couch. It started to show a composite picture from the drone flock. They were moving now, converging on the tip of the tree.

‘Lost seven of them. Fifteen more showing functionality reduction,’ Ayanna said.

‘No kidding,’ Laura muttered. She couldn’t stop thinking about Rojas. Really wonderful. What did he mean? Had he seen something?

‘How long?’ Joey asked.

‘Twenty minutes,’ Ayanna said. ‘The flock is mapping the other end of the tree.’

Laura wanted to shout loud and hard – why hadn’t they left some drones close to the exopod? Surely that was procedure? But then, this level of communication failure was inconceivable in the Commonwealth. It was wrong-footing everyone. Blaming Ayanna wouldn’t solve anything.

For every few hundred metres the flock slid along the tree, they would lose another. Sometimes two or three would fail within seconds of each other. There was no pattern.

‘There won’t be one left by the time they reach the exopod,’ Ayanna grumbled.

Laura ignored her. Shuttle Fourteen was also suffering an increased number of glitches. The network was having trouble maintaining its integrity, so many subsystems were dropping out. She watched in dismay as several primary flight systems went off line – forward reaction-control thrusters, one of the fusion tubes, three of the regrav drives, main passenger cabin and environmental systems.

‘Dammit,’ Laura grunted when the passenger cabin systems went down. ‘We can’t afford to lose environmental.’

‘There’s enough oxygen on board for three of us,’ Joey said.

‘To do what?’ Laura snapped. ‘And there’s going to be five flying down to that planet.’

‘Calm down,’ Ayanna said. ‘Worst-case scenario: we can wear pressure suits.’

‘If they work,’ Laura said, hating herself for letting her anxiety show. But . . . The prospect of asphyxiation was firing her imagination into overdrive. Seeing herself in a pressure suit with every red light flashing, clawing feebly at the windscreen just as Fourteen approached the planet, so near . . .

‘Flock’s approaching the exopod,’ Ayanna said in a level voice.

Laura tried to clear her mind and focus on the hologram which was showing the imagery from the flock. There were only eighty-seven of the little drones left now. They had rearranged themselves back into their ring formation, gliding over the tapering end of the distortion tree. The folds meandered in sharp curves, merging and becoming shallower as they neared the tip. Long moiré phantoms slithered about erratically inside the crystal, though even their intensity was reducing. Large sections would remain dark for some time between visitations.

‘There!’ Ayanna said. The exopod was floating twenty metres from the side of a narrow curving valley just over a hundred metres from the tip. Dark globes were sprouting from the crystal all around it.

Laura couldn’t see Ibu anywhere. She ordered the image to rotate, checking the other clefts in the crystal around the tip. They were all covered in the dark globes, ranging from acorn size up to the full three metres in diameter. Ibu wasn’t in any of them, either.

‘The flock is relaying a signal from the exopod,’ Ayanna reported, ‘but I’m not getting any reply from Rojas.’

‘What about their suit transponders?’ Laura asked.

Ayanna pursed her lips and shook her head.

‘Focus on the exopod, please,’ Joey said.

Ayanna’s hands flicked several toggles, and the image jumped up through magnification factors until it was centred on the exopod.

‘Hatch is open,’ Joey said. ‘Can you get some drones closer?’

Ayanna started steering a couple of the Mk16bs over to the exopod.

‘As close as I can get,’ she announced eventually.

The hologram was showing the pod in high resolution. It hung above the forward cabin’s couches like a chunk of collective guilt. They could all look in through the open hatchway and see the coloured graphics flashing across the display panels inside. Web straps floated lazily, their buckles weaving about through the empty space as if they were chrome snake heads.

‘He’s not in there,’ Laura whispered. It felt as if her space sickness was returning; certainly she was light headed. Her skin was chilling down rapidly.

‘Where the fuck is he?’ Joey asked.

‘The flock would see the suits if they were anywhere within fifty kilometres,’ Ayanna said.

‘You know where they are,’ Laura said, forcing herself to say it. ‘Inside.’

‘Inside what?’ Joey said. ‘Inside the tree or inside the globes? Are they like an airlock?’

‘We haven’t picked up any cavity inside the crystal structure,’ Ayanna said.

‘Scan the globes,’ Laura told Ayanna. ‘I don’t care if you have to smash the drones into those bastards and crack them open. We’ve got to find them.’

‘Right,’ Ayanna nodded abruptly, and set about redirecting the flock.

The wrinkled surface of the globe was some kind of carbon, but the interior was impervious to any scan. Ayanna had eight drones poised in a bracelet formation around one of them, but their sensor radiation hit the surface and got no further.

Laura took control of a drone and sent it racing at the globe. The rest of the flock showed them a perfectly clear image of it striking – and rebounding, spinning away erratically.

Refusing to give up, Laura took control of another, over-rode the tiny ion drive’s safety limiters, and accelerated it from five hundred metres’ distance. It was travelling at four metres per second when it struck. The impact killed half its systems, but the globe didn’t even have a scratch.

‘Zero effect,’ Ayanna said levelly; there was an implication of censure in the tone.

Laura flew a third probe two kilometres out from the tree, then accelerated it in. This one reached twenty-eight metres per second when it hit a globe. Its casing shattered and the fragments went tumbling off into space. The globe was unscathed by the impact.

‘What the hell are they made of?’ she demanded. ‘They must open somehow, like a clam shell. Ibu and Rojas must have been taken inside.’

‘Laura, there is no inside,’ Ayanna said.

‘Bollocks to this! The drone flock sensors aren’t good enough. They’re inside! Where the hell else can they be?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m suiting up. I’m going to take the other exopod over there, and I’m going to cut—’

‘No,’ Ayanna didn’t speak loudly, but it was definite, and her thoughts made it very clear she meant it. ‘You’re not taking the exopod anywhere. Not until we know what happened to them and have some kind of recovery plan.’

‘You heard Rojas,’ Laura said heatedly. ‘The exopods have powerblades that can cut the globes open.’

‘Then why didn’t he do that? Laura, just stop and think. Please! We’re in Voidspace, which is weird enough; the tree is an alien mechanism operating at a molecular and quantum level we cannot comprehend, and two of our people have vanished and we don’t know how or where. Charging over there all angry isn’t going to resolve anything, and it certainly won’t help Ibu and Rojas. We need information, a lot more information.’

‘She’s right,’ Joey said. ‘Rojas is smart and experienced, and he knows exploration mission protocol better than we do. And now he’s just as gone as Ibu.’

Laura knew they were right, but . . . ‘Ah, bollocks,’ she said. Admitting she was wrong, behaving like some hothead young first life, was painful. She hadn’t acted on wild impulse for centuries. ‘I’m not thinking straight. Sorry. Must be the tank yank.’

‘No,’ Joey said. ‘The Void is getting to all of us. It’s not natural.’

‘We’re going to get them back,’ Ayanna said earnestly. ‘We just have to figure out how.’

‘I don’t think this is entirely a physical problem,’ Joey said. ‘Remember, Ibu said they were amazing. Where did that come from? He’d just finished telling us he couldn’t use his ESP to see inside the globes. What else, what new piece of information, could make him say that? He’s as smart and as rational as the rest of us. He’s not going to blurt that out without a reason. Same goes for Rojas.’

‘That’s really awesome,’ Laura said, pensively. ‘That’s what Rojas said. And you’re right; it’s a complete disconnect from everything that was happening. A colleague stuck to an alien artefact – all he’d be thinking about was what to do, what procedure to follow.’

‘Something got inside their heads,’ Ayanna said. And once more the terror was leaking out of her own mind. ‘It pulled them in.’

‘Bee to pollen,’ Joey said. ‘Shark to blood.’

‘The distortion tree is sentient,’ Laura said. There was no reason to doubt the notion of mental compulsion; she could remember when narcomemes emerged into the gaiafield back in 3025. The first ones were simple product placements, amplifying the pleasure effect of various beers and aerosols. Modifying the memories available in the gaiafield to produce enhanced enjoyment was a trend that lasted for several years, almost wrecking the fledgling gaiafield concept entirely, until counter-routine filters were developed for the confluence nests. Having experienced those, Laura could well believe in more forceful variants of telepathy working in the Void.

‘Yes,’ Joey agreed.

As one, they looked through the windscreen at the massive bulk of glowing crystal.

‘So how do we get it to let them go?’ Laura asked.

‘First, we need to work out why it wants them,’ Joey said.

‘But we don’t even know what it is. What other drones have we got? There must be some kind of sensor we can use.’

‘The sample modules would be best,’ she said cautiously. ‘They were giving a good picture of the interior where Ibu placed them.’

‘But they have to be applied by hand,’ Joey retorted. ‘It has to be a drone.’

‘Half of them are designed for planetary exploration,’ Ayanna said. ‘Surface landers, atmospheric researchers. There’s not much more we can send out there.’

Laura thought for a moment. ‘Do any of the surface landers have drills? Something that cuts through rock to lift core samples?’

‘Yes. The Viking Mk353. It was designed for regolith coring down to a hundred metres.’

‘Send it.’

Half of Fourteen’s backup power systems failed while the Viking Mk353 flew over to the distortion tree. Ayanna and Laura turned off all the systems in the main passenger cabin to cut power consumption. Six of the fans in the forward cabin’s environmental systems also packed up. That was more worrying. The air was still breathable, but the gentle rush of air coming from the vents was severely reduced.

Laura went down to the payload bay’s equipment lockers and returned with two portable atmosphere filters. The thick metre-long cylinders were completely independent, with a grille on each end. One end sucked in air, which was scrubbed and filtered and blown out of the other end. She strapped them onto a couple of couches. She tested them, and switched them off again.

She did her best not to stare at Joey when she was sorting out the portable filters. He was still strapped onto his couch. But the shakes on his hands were moving down his arms, causing both limbs to twitch.

‘Keep going,’ his mental voice told her. ‘I can manage.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. I’m keeping busy. The shuttle’s external sensors are still working – some of them, anyway. I’m still trying to see if I can spot the ships down on the surface. There’s certainly no evidence of a crash so far.’

‘That’s good.’ She caught the unease in his thought. By now she had enough experience to know it was powered by something more than just his physical deterioration. ‘What is it?’

He shook his head – a sharp juddering motion. ‘There’s something wrong.’

‘Wrong?’

‘Yes. I’m looking and looking at the planet, and I know there’s something wrong with what I’m seeing, but I don’t know what.’

‘What kind of thing?’ she asked cautiously.

A spasm rippled over his twisted-up features. ‘I don’t know. I’m looking right at it. I know I am. But I can’t see it.’

‘Can I help? Do you want me to review the images with you?’

‘No. Thanks. I’ll find it.’

‘Okay.’ There was a lot she wanted to say about how his illness might be affecting his thoughts. Instead, she gave him a sympathetic smile and pushed off to glide down the aisle.

‘How’s the Viking’s signal?’ she asked, when she rejoined Ayanna up at the front of the cabin.

‘Not bad.’

A display screen on the console was showing the Viking approaching the tip of the tree. The exopod’s strobes were flashing away in the centre of the picture.

Laura watched the lander approach the shallow fold where Ibu and Rojas had vanished. Ayanna was remote flying it competently, bringing it to rest a hundred metres from the exopod.

‘I was thinking,’ Ayanna said. ‘If they are inside those globes somehow, we don’t know which ones. So I’m going to start drilling one of the small ones, something they couldn’t possibly be held in.’

‘Sure,’ Laura said. ‘Good idea.’ She hadn’t been thinking quite along those lines. Some part of her was expecting to use the drill to free their missing team members – even if exactly how eluded her.

The Viking descended to hover less than a metre above a globe that measured a metre ten in diameter. The little onboard array held it in place with small bursts from its ion thrusters and deployed the drill.

‘We’re going to have trouble countering the torque,’ Laura said. ‘There’s not much fuel on board. The Viking wasn’t designed for space operations, just getting through the atmosphere intact and landing.’

‘I know,’ Ayanna said.

The ion thrusters flared and the Viking began to rotate around its axis. The drill spun up. Powerful landing thrusters flared briefly, pushing the Viking hard towards the globe. The picture shook as the drill touched the upper surface of the globe. Then it turned to smears as the Viking began to spin. Thrusters fired again, trying to compensate. Now the image was of juddering smears.

‘What the—’ Ayanna exclaimed.

The Viking was suddenly shooting off, away from the tree, tumbling end over end.

Laura stared at the hologram which was showing the combined imagery from the Mk16b drones. ‘Oh my, will you look at that?’ The Viking’s drill must have succeeded in penetrating the small globe. It was squirting out a pale white liquid, a thin fountain that was over three metres high before it started to break apart into a shower of globules that kept on going, oscillating wildly as they sprayed out into the vacuum.

‘Did the Viking get any?’ Laura demanded as Ayanna tried to regain control of the tumbling lander, slowing the gyrations and stabilizing the trajectory.

‘What?’

‘The samplers in the drill head? Did any of that stuff touch them before the pressure blew it off?’

‘I think so. Hang on.’

The pale fountain was slowing, shrinking. Within seconds it was just a tiny runnel of syrupy fluid trickling out of the puncture hole. A thin fog swirled gently around it as it began to vacuum boil.

‘If all the globes are full of liquid, then Ibu and Rojas can’t be inside them,’ Joey said.

Laura glared at the globe and its bubbling wound. ‘Then where the hell are they?’

‘Same place as the Vermillion and the Mk24s.’

‘You’re not helping.’

‘I’ve got the Viking stable,’ Ayanna said. ‘The drill samplers did get something.’

They both turned to watch the display screen on the console bring up the preliminary spectral analysis.

‘Hydrocarbons,’ Laura read the raw data, the routines in her macrocellular clusters running analysis. ‘Water. Sugars. What’s that? Looks like a protein structure.’

‘The fluid’s organic,’ Ayanna said in shock. ‘The globes are alive.’

The cabin lighting went off, to be replaced by the low blue-tinged glow of the emergency lighting. Somewhere in the shuttle a fire alarm was shrieking.

*

It had taken a power screwdriver from the equipment locker to prise the panel off the passenger cabin bulkhead. By the time they did that, the composite panel was blackening and starting to blister. There were no flames inside, but the power cell was glowing. Spraying it with extinguisher gel wasn’t the answer.

Laura yanked one of the emergency suits out of its overhead wallet and jammed her arm into the sleeve. The glove had just enough insulation. With Ayanna cutting through the power cell’s surrounding cables and mountings, she tugged it out and lumbered her way down to the payload bay. The whole suit went into the airlock, wrapped around the now-sizzling power cell. She slapped the emergency evacuation button. And the smouldering mess went flying off into space when the outer hatch peeled open.

‘Got another one,’ Ayanna was calling from the passenger cabin above the multiple alarm sirens.

Laura started opening lockers, hunting for some decent tools. Her hand was blistered where the power cell’s runaway heat had soaked through the suit glove’s insulation. She hauled herself back to the passenger cabin, lugging a utility belt.

In the end they had to remove four of the shorted-out power cells and physically inspect the rest. There were seventeen in the shuttle.

‘Just brilliant,’ a shaking Ayanna said when they checked behind the last panel. ‘There have been so many Void glitches they finally induced a genuine problem.’

Laura’s u-shadow managed to link to the power cells’ management processor. ‘Power surge broke the cut-offs here, but they fused in safe mode. We need to replace the main circuits if we want to enable the systems it supplies.’

Ayanna gave the passenger cabin a disgusted look. The blueish emergency lighting was somehow cooling, and the panels floated about chaotically, along with fragments and broken cabling they’d cut free. One of the portable atmosphere filters they’d brought in to deal with the fumes was creating a steady breeze, which stirred all the fragments. They were constantly flicking them away from their eyes. ‘We don’t have time to deal with this crap,’ she said. ‘It’s only the backups which have failed, not the main fusion tubes. And there are still a whole load of power cells left. It was just the ones in here that absorbed the surge.’

Laura followed her gaze round the shambolic cabin. There was still a tang of ozone and burnt plastic in the air. It had taken them over three hours to deal with all the power cells and their associated ancillary systems, which had to be disconnected as well. There wasn’t much to show for all that work, and they hadn’t even begun repairs. ‘You’re right,’ she admitted.

Joey was in the service compartment, staring at a panel they’d opened on the ceiling to expose an environment system unit which had suffered in the power surge, shutting down to protect itself. His arms and legs were now twitching constantly, preventing him from doing any precise work. But Laura watched in fascination as wires and electronic modules moved obediently as he manipulated them with telekinesis. Even screws unwound themselves under his control and hovered in a neat three-dimensional stack to one side.

‘Cool,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’ His mental tone was one of relief. ‘I do have a use after all.’

‘You’ve had a use right from the start.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Come on, you’re not some first-life sympathy junkie. All anybody does in this age is think. We don’t measure people by their physical ability any more.’

Joey emitted a low grunt of disparagement. ‘That might just be about to change once we reach the surface. No bots down there; it’ll be back to physical labour for us.’

She arched an eyebrow coyly. ‘A Brandt doing manual work? We’re doomed, then.’

He let out a guttural laugh and focused on the complex innards of the unit he’d exposed.

Laura airswam into the forward cabin and took a look at all the display screens and holograph projections. The drone flock was still surrounding the tip of the tree, though it was down to sixty-three operational units now. There was no sign of Ibu or Rojas, no signal from their suits. The exopod remained in place, holding station where Rojas had left it. And her burnt hand hurt like hell.

‘Ouch! Bollocks.’ Laura pushed stray fronds of hair back inside her padded helmet with her good hand. Like a child, she’d imagined that everything would have come right while she was away giving her attention to the shuttle’s screwed-up power systems.