Take Back the Sky Page 4

  So Bird Girl informs us, DJ and me, reluctant to reveal even this much. She’s doing it only because she’s also scared, and that resonates with our fear. Still, bug steward approves of the resonance. We’re truly related, the steward observes. Proof of some ancient concept, some ancient—

  I lose the rest of that overtone, which seems to come out of nowhere specific—the depths of the saline sea, Bug Karnak, maybe—

  Or the squid? Did I just touch the mind of one of those? Or something even stranger …

  The starshina.

  I shudder.

  This new and strange ship, if our luck holds, will take us very far away, very swiftly, because of a haze of branching green minds … whatever the hell that means.

  Ulyanova again—just briefly. Like tiptoeing over razor blades. I want that to stop, really I do. I try to blink in the darkness. How do I know when my eyes are closed?

  Fascinating stuff, no?

  But I’m still in a fucking can.

  DELIVERED

  I have a moment through the awfulness to wonder how the others are doing, if they’re also still in cans. Maybe we’ll all end up drooling basket cases, no use to anybody, and the Antag commanders will just dump us out in space like old garbage. Antags should have no idea how to fix us—only how to kill us. We’ll become part of Saturn’s rings, supercooled packets of meat caught in the grind of orbiting ice and rock boulders, forgotten by everybody …

  Bug steward seems to be keeping its presence, its interference, low-key, to encourage the connection with Bird Girl. And I feel Bird Girl more intensely than ever. She’s exploring me in detail, overcoming an inherent reluctance, listening closely to my overtones, but so far, it’s strictly a one-way exchange. Perversely, that makes me both happy and even more queasy.

  Then, as if in payment for her intrusion, she provides another blurry impression of our transport working to join up with the big ship. No idea where that is. Maybe it’s still orbiting Titan. If so, why hasn’t Box attacked it?

  For a time, I feel like I’m floating in space, no body, just a pair of eyes—vision doubled, so it’s a quartet of eyes—but very low rez. I can barely make out the stars. Then my perspective shifts and I think I see Saturn’s rings, lightly sketched and again doubled, giving me a weird ache in my eye muscles. There are little flashing symbols on the different rings, the shepherd moons—then the view goes back to that goddamned ship. I have to guess through Bird Girl’s eyes, or maybe what someone is telling her—because she can’t see it directly, can she?—how big it really is.

  The vessel we’re closing on is maybe nine or ten klicks long and has a short, blunt tail. Forward of the tail swells a gray bulb maybe two or three klicks in diameter. Full of fuel to get home? There’s a cylindrical midsection about four klicks long and a klick in diameter, and at the prow or nose, a long, skinny tube like the needle of a hypodermic. Big and ugly. Forward of the bulb, just back from the nose, five long containers are arranged in pentagonal frames around the middle cylinder like bullets in a revolver. Not all that different from the Spook, actually, but maybe ten or fifteen times bigger. I can’t see what drives it. I’m given the impression the big ship has been hidden away for years—kept in reserve, but by whom, and why?

  Why can’t Bird Girl view it directly? Is it invisible?

  What’s obvious is that no Antag has never seen or experienced anything remotely like it. The transport’s crew is approaching cautiously, critically, in no hurry, because they’re ignorant of what could happen, but also, Bird Girl is their only connection to someone or something crucial to activating the ship. Maybe two somethings.

  One appears to be an Antag, a ragged, poorly treated creature with a sad, shabby demeanor. In Bird Girl’s eyes, this bedraggled Antag is a monster, a traitor, a true atrocity, but essential to the success of this mission.

  And there’s something else, something she won’t tell me about or allow me to see. Not an Antag, but a Keeper, fallen so far from grace, after flying so high, that the crew simply wants to kill it. But Bird Girl won’t let them.

  And this Keeper, whatever it may be, is afraid of me? Of humans? More afraid of those who are connected to the archives, I’m guessing. That makes my brain itch. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s former friend?

  For some reason, I don’t draw the obvious connection. I’m not at my best in this situation. As far as we are concerned, her fellows don’t trust Bird Girl not just because of that weirdness, but because she has a connection with humans, and will force us all to meet and interact. In their eyes, she’s tainted all around.

  Great. I try to screw down on our link, to see these complications more clearly, or at least begin to understand them—but now a debate, maybe even a fight, has broken out around Bird Girl, not for the first time, and she’s totally absorbed trying to defuse the tensions and get along with her fellows. There aren’t that many of them left, maybe thirty. Hard to count.

  The last Antag warriors are convinced that this journey, this maneuver or feint, will be the last thing they’ll ever do.

  Ice Moon Tea has connected us, the steward of bug memory has connected us, but Bird Girl will be very, very glad when our sharing ends and she can revert to her lone fighter self. She feels violated by having to deal with DJ and me and the mysterious Keeper. She feels she’s been sacrificed, her honor discarded.

  GARDEN OF ODIN

  When her troubles have eased, Bird Girl passes along a tidbit of information, and it’s a wrencher—that the crew believes, or has been informed by their commanders, that there’s something about the big ship that’s frightening and forbidden—taboo.

  It’s not an Antag ship. Got that. And it’s not human, either. Something huge, invisible, alien, unknown. A lost artifact filled with angry gods or creatures of light? Cosmic zombies or vampires? I try not to let my subconscious get out of control.

  Then our link fades. I’m back in the dark. I sniff, sniff again, feel the coolness of the container wall—smooth and dry. If I don’t stretch out my arms and press, I float. The air actually feels fresh, though I can’t tell where it’s coming from. That’s a plus, an offer of hope that we’re not just being executed by slow suffocation. But I’m still thirsty and hungry. Should I be grateful we haven’t eaten since being peeled out of our lobster suits? I haven’t had to fill the can with unseemly stink.

  More motion—sideways, swaying, followed by creaks and pops I feel in my ears. Possibly the cans are being sealed off, and the swaying may mean we’re being transferred.

  As much as Bird Girl has no interest in keeping us fully informed, I get occasional glimpses of this and that—of two transports entering an opening in empty space, of cans being winched in clusters out of one transport. I try to chuckle at a memory of beach parties on Socotra, beer cans slopping in plastic-strapped six-packs. The chuckle fades into a gurgle.

  This is all she sees, all Bird Girl can know. She’s not a pilot, has no connection to the pilots, if this strange, taboo ship can have real pilots. But from what she does convey, it’s obvious the ship is vastly more powerful than either of us has managed to use or create. We’ve both been contained, coached and prepped to go at each other on almost equal footing. How much does equality of tech and knowledge equal a longer, more entertaining war? Who’s been dealt the stronger hand?

  Who’s favored?

  Bug steward seems irritated by my density. Whoever most pleases the masters of this ancient game.

  Gurus? Keepers are the same as Gurus! Bird Girl has been telling me that Antags have Gurus, just like humans—showrunners for their side of our war. Bird Girl’s commanders, her people, have been told that humans want to kill all Keepers—all Gurus—and all Antags and dominate the solar system, while Keepers, like Antags, just want to live in peace. Same story we’ve been fed, but in reverse.

  The air in the can becomes close. I can’t simply stop breathing. I need to get out. There’s that damned squeaking again—it’s me, I’m freaking.

 
Then the can opens like a lunchbox. The lights come up to unbearable brightness and three of the small, bat-wing critters rustle close, wings folded tight, to peer at me. Their four reddish-purple eyes blink. Big Antags are at least four times larger—if the small ones are even Antags and not lackeys or servants. Nobody wants to touch me. I rise from the can and nearly float out, then grip the edge, casual as can be, except that I’m laughing like a maniac. I try with all my willpower to stop. Don’t want to lose it. Not after having survived all that crap—not when there’s finally hope.

  I stuff my hand in my mouth and look around.

  The cans have been tied down with rubbery gray cords on a brightly illuminated platform. We’re in zero g, surrounded by a space that shades off to warm darkness. Four more of us are released and cling to the edges of the cans or the cords themselves: Borden, DJ, Kumar, Joe. Our sounds echo—retching, crying out, calling names.

  Bats pull the rest of the cans up against the first five, tying them to the others with more cords. They’re opened next. Here’s Tak, Ishida, Ishikawa—Jacobi. We’re all in pajama bottoms and nothing more. Jacobi looks cool and collected, but vomit spatters her chest and arms.

  Litvinov emerges with a gaunt, haunted look on his lean face. Ulyanova rises from her can with arms crossed. I see Kumar, also covered in vomit. I don’t see Mushran.

  Most of the Russians must have died back in the Battle of the Titanian Sea. The two that are still with us, besides Litvinov and Ulyanova, I barely know—a couple of efreitors: one male named Bilyk, the other a female named Yagodovskaya, a few years older than Ulyanova.

  Christ almighty. Fourteen, barely a squad. Six are still spewing thin vomit that makes the bat critters shuffle and flap. For some reason, that insane comedy makes me want to cry. But at least I’ve stopped laughing.

  Physically I’m okay, but DJ is taking this poorly, as are Ishikawa and Borden. We’ve been through too many changes.

  Five of the big Antags watch from the side of the platform. I recognize Bird Girl at the center—same orange and blue colors around the eyes, same blue, raspy tongue. I fix details of Antag appearance in memory—wingspans of about three meters, outer tips sprouting small fingers, more substantial gripping digits on each wing elbow or middle joint—basically two upper sets of hands. The bats seem to have similar arrangements. Beneath a thick tunic, the thorax presents a central breastbone like a turkey’s. Under clinging pantaloons, the lower limbs are short, thick, and tightly muscled, with hands on knees and prehensile feet, mostly covered now in buttoned pockets and flexible booties. Bird Girl would make a great juggler.

  The bats gather around Bird Girl like dogs at a hunt. She moves her wing-fingers and issues light, sweet whistles, to which the bats respond by helping mop up the vomit. Everything is hidden in shadow. Antags, bats, us, a couple of transports maybe thirty meters away—surrounded by gloom. No more overtones, no more clues. Bird Girl is no longer broadcasting on our private wavelength. DJ looks pale and serious. At least he’s stopped spewing.

  Kumar hangs on to my arm, pushing his face close. “Where are we?” he asks, eyes darting. I hope I’m not surrounded by total loons. Most of the others have been far more isolated than me. Ulyanova stares off into the shadows and doesn’t once look my way.

  The bats pry us apart, space us out, then hand us more ropes. After they’ve persuaded us to hang on, they tug and guide us out of the shaded chamber and along a curved tube. The walls of the tube are equipped every few meters with rungs that both big and small Antags use to navigate. The rungs do not seem designed for them but they’re making do. Bird Girl is behind us. This phase of our journey takes about ten minutes. The tube veers sharp left, and we’re pulled through the crimp with hard knocks.

  The bats and one of the Antags then tug and shove us into a cubic space like a giant racquetball court, its corners also lost in shadow. All we can see clearly, in the center of the court, is a spherical cage about thirty meters in diameter, made of thick wire mesh and cabled to the side walls.

  Some of the bats nicker and whistle, then poke out wing-fingers in sequence. They seem to be counting, maybe counting us. They can count to forty-eight on their fingers, should they be so inclined.

  Four Antags enter the court. Bird Girl is again number three in their lineup. Two wear tunics, including Bird Girl. The others are equipped with what could be light armor, covering the breastbone and forming protective collars over the wing-shoulders.

  Bird Girl surveys our pitifully reduced group. Her purple-rimmed eyes light on me, and she approaches with evident reluctance, no doubt disgusted by everything about me—certainly by my appearance and smell. Man, have we been primed to be enemies.

  I look left down our rope line. We’re all scarred in pink lines and scabs from the removal of the lobster suits but appear to be healing. Ishida’s metal parts are lightly scored but seem intact. I wonder how they knew which parts were hers and which the suit’s.

  We half-bob, half-float, hanging on to the rope and to one another. Bird Girl informs us through the translator that all our cuts and bruises were due to the activities of our suits and were not deliberately inflicted by Antag healers—by which she means the bats, not just technical rates but general-duty helpers. She also confirms that we’re going to be kept for the time being in the spherical cage. Her voice through the translator is edged with something like electronic bird sounds—grating, hashy, not at all soothing. But then she adds that these quarters will be temporary. The Antags are presently exploring, hoping to find better living spaces deeper in the ship.

  To DJ and me she relays directly that there’s something complicated about that process—something that scares her. Keepers are involved, and there’s one major, nasty, foul impediment, accompanied by mental expletives of sharp bones in the throat and patches of fresh guano, applied to the only way forward, and to a gate that is also a trap—a puzzle gate. If we solve the puzzle, we might be able to get the hell out of here, wherever we are.

  And if we don’t, the obscenity will kill us.

  I was under the apparently false impression that we left Titan’s orbit as soon as we could, to avoid being obliterated by Box and the others sent after us—but Bird Girl seems to think we’re still close to the big orange moon.

  No questions allowed. Not that DJ or I try … She’s worried and tired. The cage is it for us for the time being, but it could be worse—has been worse. Inside the sphere we can be fed, looked after, kept clean … and closely watched. Mats will be provided. Maybe we can wrap ourselves up and bounce around like Ping-Pong balls in a church raffle. I suppose to keep us clean they’ll hose us down, right? No comment. We can exercise, Bird Girl suggests. Get stronger. She isn’t sure how we’ll do that, but her commanders want us strong and healthy. I get the impression the commanders are the ones wearing armor. Her relation to them is less clear—she’s not exactly inferior in either station or rank. Civilian? Consultant?

  Unwilling volunteer?

  She makes clear that she wants one of us in particular to stay healthy. Again I see a naked Antag, oppressed and unkempt, but I don’t recognize the human she shows me, except that it could be one of our females. Maybe a Russian? We all look alike to the Antags.

  One by one, we’re guided through a hatch into the cage. Ulyanova doesn’t put up a fuss. Yagodovskaya, the efreitor—Verushka or Vera—seems to have a calming influence. The bats toss mats through the hatch, then swing it shut with a clang and click a double-stranded lock around the latch. Something to jiggle with later, to see if escape is possible.

  The lights around the court dim, as if we’re in a nighttime zoo. We can no longer see more than a meter beyond the mesh—can’t see Antags large or small, though now and then I hear the bats nicker. Maybe most have left, gone to work, getting ready to finally go home—or to fight again. Fight their own kind. If they fail here, I suspect suicide missions are the next option. And they’ll take us out to die right beside them.

  At least we’re not cra
mped. The big ball could hold dozens more. We take this time to examine one another in more detail. Tak has corpsman training, as does Jacobi. All who came out of the two surviving Oscars are here—all except Mushran. Nobody remembers seeing him after the centipede cabins were split open.

  DJ moves closer to me, along with Joe and Jacobi, and we grip hands in a loose star-knot, like a parachute team. Joe pulls in Jacobi and Bilyk. Ishikawa and Tak join next and draw Ishida in. Yagodovskaya—Vera—grabs Ulyanova and they join us. Borden and Kumar and Litvinov cap our formation. We seem to want to cling like monkeys, anticipating more misery.

  “We need to show some fight,” Joe says, keeping a wary eye on the starshina. “We’ve been through a meat grinder. We need to show them they can’t get away with treating us like shit.”

  “When will they feed us?” Jacobi asks.

  HAMSTER LIFE

  Our first sleep in the cage is deep.

  I come out of my void to see Jacobi marshal her team and lead them in limbering up—another diagnostic, I think, making sure they can still fight, or at least move together in a coordinated fashion. Ishida works the hardest, complains the least. Litvinov gathers up his three Russians and does the same.

  Kumar seems content to drift to a far side of the cage, where I imagine he’s making plans. That’s what Wait Staff do, all they’re good for, right? Without Mushran, can he possibly carry on?

  Joe rolls and floats up beside me, asks, “I wonder if the Antags will make us join their fight.”

  “They’re doing everything they can to avoid a fight,” I say.

  DJ flaps by, ineffective at swimming or flying or whatever he’s doing, and chimes in. “They’re really unhappy. They’ve spent their whole lives training to push us off Mars and get ready to invade Earth. And now—they’re giving up and planning to get the hell out.”