He stood and walked away, his laughter fading in synch with her senses.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Plague Forge

2.APR.2285

Skyler lowered Russell Blackfield’s head to the floor, slid the dead man’s eyelids closed, and sat back on the floor with a grunt. He felt twice his normal weight, like he was seated on the floor of an aircraft making a hard climb. Russell had been right; Not only was the facility being lifted off the ground; it was also accelerating upward.

Across from him, Ana gazed blankly at the body of their former captive. At the man who’d … who’d what?

Seated here, staring at the man who’d just saved his life, and the life of the woman he loved, Skyler couldn’t recall exactly what Blackfield had done wrong. Sure, he’d been a womanizing asshole, and he’d confiscated scavenged cargo without much in the way of evidence, but what else beyond that? He’d held Tania against her will, but never laid a finger on her. He’d used his position in Nightcliff to gain a seat on the Orbital Council, which was probably within his right. It wasn’t Russell’s fault that this happened to coincide with Neil Platz’s efforts to figure out the next Builder visit, a situation that forced everyone to choose sides.

So what had Blackfield done? Destroyed Prumble’s garage? Yes, though in the lawless confines of Darwin this wasn’t exactly outside of his right, either. Prumble hadn’t even really argued the move.

Granted, he’d sent numerous spies over to Belem. Yet Skyler doubted he’d have done differently had he been in Blackfield’s shoes. Tania, and Skyler to a degree, had stolen the primary source of food for Darwin. It wasn’t a situation that could be allowed to linger on.

And in the end Blackfield had been betrayed by Grillo, a much more worthy recipient of Skyler’s hatred, in hindsight. Blackfield had fled to Belem, brought an entire station as his ticket for entry. And what had they done? Assumed a trick, thrown him in a cell. Skyler had pressed Tania to put the man out an airlock, advice that, if taken, would mean Skyler would likely be dead right now.

A tear rolled down Skyler’s cheek. “Dammit,” he growled, wiping it away.

“What’s wrong?” Ana asked.

He laughed, embarrassed. “The bastard can’t even die without doing something to get under my skin. How can I hate him now?”

Ana raised an eyebrow, confused.

“After everything that’s happened,” Skyler said with a reluctant grin, “in the end I’m the one who feels like an asshole.”

Ana smirked. “He was kind of a jerk.”

“True, but our treatment of him was rather out of proportion for it, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “Caution was necessary. He was dangerous. Erratic. Everyone said so.”

“Erratic, yes,” Skyler said. “Vary the pattern indeed.”

The press of acceleration made him reluctant to move. In a strange way he envied the peaceful expression on Russell’s face. Skyler hadn’t known rest like that in a long time. And he suspected his turn was still a ways off. “I don’t know where this place is going,” he said, “but I think we’d better prepare ourselves.”

“I can hardly move,” Ana said.

“I know. Still, we’re low on ammo, not to mention food. Lots of bodies down below to search. Soldiers, medics, et cetera.”

Ana looked at him closely. “We need to do something about your chin.”

Somehow he’d managed to bury the constant hot pain there. At her mention he almost, almost reached up and touched the wound, then thought better of it. “It’s okay as long as I don’t smile.”

“It’s bad, Skyler. Worse than that.” She seemed in pain just staring at the cut.

He struggled to a standing position, wincing at a spike of pain from his knees. In his years as a pilot he’d often accelerated at a pace like this, or even faster, but always it had been in a cushioned seat. Trying to stand, much less walk or fight, while weighing twice the normal amount, felt like an unnecessarily cruel joke. What could the Builders be doing with this damned pyramid that required such a pace?

Getting it off Earth as quickly as possible, he guessed. But why?

“I guess we won’t be making our rendezvous in Darwin,” Ana said. The defeat in her voice stung.

“Nope.”

“Will your friends be okay?”

He considered that. “They’ll think of something. Get in touch with Belem at least, and come up with a new plan.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m trying.” Skyler lumbered to the tunnel that led back down.

“What about the … thing?”

“Leave it. It’s not going anywhere.” The last thing he wanted to do was lug that block around when it weighed twice its normal amount. He took stock of the rest of his possessions on the way to the tunnel. One Chinese assault rifle, no ammunition. He almost tossed it aside when he realized it would make a passable walking stick, so he kept it. Remembering his manners, he held it out to Ana.

She waved it off. “You’re the old man with bad knees.”

He groaned. Dammit if she didn’t always know how to dispel a bad mood. “Any weapons left?”

“Just my wicked tongue.”

“No wonder they’ve all run away.”

At the tunnel Skyler paused to let his ears adjust. They still rang from the grenade blast, but the sensation had faded to a background din. Plenty of other sounds reached him, but what their sources were he couldn’t know. A creaking noise, like pack ice settling, he guessed came from whatever lifted the facility to space. Another space elevator, he wondered? Surely this building weighed far too much.

Beneath that, a sound he knew well and dreaded now more than ever before. Mumbling. Shuffling of feet. The occasional hiss or snarl. He glanced at Ana and could tell from the tired look in her eyes that she heard it, too. Fighting them hand to hand was bad enough; to do it when he felt like he wore a suit made of sandbags would be something else entirely. Suicide, he guessed.

“Change of plan,” he said.

Ana stood next to him now, a hand on his shoulder for support, her gaze fixed on the dark tunnel.

“This pace won’t go on forever. We’ll either slow down, in which case the floor will be up there,” he said, pointing, “or we’ll reach a cruising speed. If we’re high enough at that point—”

“We’ll be weightless.”

“Yes.”

Her brow furrowed. “So?”

“I’m guessing the subhumans aren’t very adept at moving in zero-g.”

Ana grinned at that. “Neither am I.”

“You know how to swim, though.” When she nodded he went on. “It’s similar to that. You’ll get your bearings fast enough. So, let’s wait a bit.”

“Okay.” She sounded skeptical. “But, Skyler? Let’s wait in the tunnel.”

“Why?”

“If the floor and ceiling swap roles,” she said, glancing up, “that’s a long way to fall headfirst.”

Whether due to the added illusory gravity, or from a shared exhaustion, the subhumans below did not climb the steep hallway. Whatever drive they’d been possessed with to reach the oval-shaped object had vanished either with the defeat of their armored friend, or perhaps simply with the facility’s lift from Earth.

Skyler let Ana dab the blood from his chin. She had nothing to stitch the cut with, so she held a patch of cloth torn from her shirt to it. After a time the simple act of keeping pressure on the bandage became too tiring, so Skyler lay on the floor and Ana rested her head on his chest. She kept the fabric in place with the back of her head. She slept after a time. He lost himself in the smell of her hair, still a wonderful comfort despite the hints of smoke and blood that mingled there.

He felt as if aboard a great ocean vessel, rocked gently by unseen waves. The motion pushed him toward a trancelike state that he fought at first, then gradually welcomed. Time began to slip by in blurred moments of clarity and fog.

A sensation of falling jerked Skyler awake.

Ana drifted a few centimeters above him, arms splayed out like a spirit.

“Wake up,” he said, careful to keep his voice low. “Ana, wake up.” He reached up and tugged at her.

Her body spasmed and she let out a frightened gasp. Skyler tried to pull her back down, but his action only succeeded in propelling them toward each other. His own body off the floor now, too, he realized a critical flaw in his plan: Unlike the stations build by Platz, this place had no handles or ladder rungs on the walls by which to control movement. The floors, walls, and ceiling were smooth for the most part.

“What’s happening?” Ana asked, still groggy.

“We’re in space, that’s what’s happening.” And it’s a damn lucky thing we can still breathe. He wondered if this fact meant the Builders breathed the same air as humans. More likely the structure had simply sealed itself, including whatever air had been inside at the time. Air that would no doubt run out eventually, but he guessed it would be a long time given the sheer volume of open space within.

Skyler clutched at the fabric of Ana’s shirt and turned to face the nearby floor, still in arm’s reach. The motion sent them both spinning like figure skaters. “I’m not setting a very good example, am I?”

“Either that or you’re a terrible swimmer.”

The rotation stopped. Ana managed to wedge her fingertips into the space between two of the large hexagonal tiles that made up the floor of the tunnel. Moving with dreamlike slowness, Skyler tugged gently on her shirt to get his own momentum moving toward the same surface, and then let go and allowed that motion to carry him without putting any more pressure on her.

A few more seconds of floundering and Skyler found himself perched next to her and even facing the same direction. “The fact that neither of us has vomited means this is going rather well.”

She scrunched her face at him. “Your chin looks better. The bleeding’s stopped at least.”

Skyler resisted the intense urge to probe the wound with his fingertips, partly because of the pain it would bring and partly so he wouldn’t wind up drifting about like a fish with no fins. He focused instead on the tunnel. “Right. Let’s get moving before gravity changes again. One of us moves at a time, agreed?”

“Sure.”

He nodded and pulled himself forward. The motion sent him drifting just centimeters above the floor. As he flew along he wondered if the building had reached orbit and stopped, or merely had reached a cruising speed at an altitude beyond Earth’s gravity well. For the first time the idea crept into his mind that they might be stowaways on a departing starship.

At the first corner he stopped, righted himself, and waited. This part of the hall hid in darkness, with dim light coming from behind drawing Ana in profile. Below, a warmer glow crept into the hall. The light remained constant as Skyler watched. No signs of movement or the shuffling of bodies. Yet he sensed they waited down there. Cut off from food, how long would the subhumans wait before they turned on one another? Not long, he thought. If they retained anything from their former human instincts it was the will to survive. The question was why they weren’t searching the facility now, exhausting all other possibilities.

Ana arrived and flashed a thumbs-up. Skyler pushed off again. He held his breath as he reached the junction at the back of the first room they’d found upon entering the structure. Drifting along in total silence, Skyler glanced sidelong as he passed.

Subhumans, perhaps ten of them, huddled in groups of two or three in the corners. Their motion must have naturally clumped them there, he thought. Their heads were down out of boredom or simple exhaustion. Some slept, adrift in the open space. Perhaps they were dead, but somehow he didn’t think that to be the case. Their faces were too peaceful and he saw no signs of injury.

The whole scene was too peaceful. It’s like all of their aggression has gone.

He wondered if they’d been ordered, or compelled somehow, by the armored creature to stay below while it took on the human stowaways. Maybe these subs assumed their superior had won, and they were now awaiting new orders. Cut off from the ground, perhaps they thought their purpose for existence had run dry.

The bodies left behind from the earlier battle here had been removed, of that Skyler felt sure. Where, or perhaps more important, who had moved them, remained a mystery.

He drifted past without being noticed. The tunnel continued down, but he stopped himself midway by brushing his hands lightly against the stonelike surface. Any farther and he’d be out of Ana’s view. He turned and motioned for her to come.

The entrance to what Skyler considered the basement was a misshapen, bandaged wound. Ana had fired numerous grenades into the opening out of sheer terror and desperation. Only one of their armored pursuers had made it through that. As for the others, Skyler could only hope her blind firing had been effective. Where her explosives had hit he expected to see rubble, charred debris, bits of sparking wire poking out of the walls and ceiling. He found none of that. But the floor, the walls, the whole perimeter of the entrance had dents and irregular lines, as if the damage done had been hastily covered by duct tape and painted over. Skyler touched the wall, ran his fingers along one of the odd bends. Hard as stone. Vibration tingled his fingertips, as if the very wall coursed with energy.

“It’s repairing itself,” Ana said.

He felt his mouth go dry, wondering if the coated subhumans could do the same. It had been one thing to fight them when armed to the teeth, but now he suspected the outcome would be vastly, horribly different.