Alastair Reynolds - The Six Directions of Space

“Too ambiguous,” Qilian countered. “Air might vent simply because the ship was breaking up, long after we were all dead. It could easily encourage them to abandon us completely. What do we need this ship for in any case? We may as well eject the lifeboats. The Mandate of Heaven can collect them individually.”

After a instant of reflection, Muhunnad said: “I think the commander is correct. There is nothing to be gained by staying aboard now. At the very least, the lifeboats will require the enemy to pursue multiple targets.”

There were six lifeboats, one for each of us.

“Let’s go,” Qilian replied.

“I’ll see you at the lifeboats,” I said. “I have to help Muhunnad out of the harness first.”

Qilian looked at me for a moment, some dark calculation working itself out behind his eyes. He nodded once. “Be quick about it, Yellow Dog. But we don’t want to lose him. He’s still a valued asset.”

With renewed strength, I hauled the both of us through the echoing labyrinth of the ship, to the section that contained the lifeboats. It was clear that the attack had wrought considerable damage on this part of the ship, buckling wall and floor plates, constricting passageways, and jamming bulkhead doors tight into their frames. We had to detour halfway to the rear before we found a clear route back to the boats. Yet although we were ready to don suits if necessary, we never encountered any loss of pressure.

Sandwiched between layers of the River Volga’s outer hull was a kind of foam that was designed to expand and harden upon exposure to vacuum, quickly sealing any leaks before they presented a threat to the crew. From the outside, that bulging and hardening foam would have resembled a mass of swollen dough erupting through cracks in the hull.

There were six lifeboats, accessed through six armored doorways, each of which was surmounted with a panel engraved with both operating instructions and stern warnings concerning the penalties for improper use. Qilian was floating at the far end, next to the open doorway of the sixth boat. I had to look at him for a long, bewildered moment before I quite realized what I was seeing. I wondered if it was a trick of my eyes, occasioned by the gloomy lighting. But I had made no mistake. Next to Qilian, floating in states of deceptive repose, were the bodies of Jura and Batbayar. A little further away, as if he had been surprised and killed on his own, was Uugan. They had all been stabbed and gashed: knife wounds to the chest and throat, in all three instances. Blood was still oozing out of them.

In his good hand, Qilian held a bloody knife, wet and slick to the hilt.

“I am sorry,” he said, as if all that situation needed was a reasonable explanation. “But only one of these six boats is functional.”

I stared in numb disbelief. “How can only one be working?”

“The other five are obstructed; they can’t leave because there is damage to their launch hatches. This is the only one with a clear shaft all the way to space.” Qilian wiped the flat of the blade against his forearm.

“Of course, I wish you the best of luck in proving me wrong. But I am afraid I will not be around to witness your efforts.”

“You fucking—” I began, before trailing off. I knew if I called him a coward he would simply laugh at me, and I had no intention of giving him even the tiniest of moral victories. “Just go,” I said.

He drew himself into the lifeboat. I expected some last word from him, some mocking reproach or grandiloquent burst of self-justifying rhetoric. But there was nothing. The door clunked shut with a gasp of compressed air. There was a moment of silence and stillness and then the boat launched itself away from the ship on a rapid stutter of electromagnetic pulses.

I felt the entire hull budge sideways in recoil. He was gone. For several seconds, all I could do was breathe; I could think of nothing useful or constructive to say to Muhunnad, nothing beyond stating the obvious hopelessness of our predicament.

But instead, Muhunnad said quietly: “We are not going to die.”

At first, I did not quite understand his words. “I’m sorry?”

He spoke with greater emphasis this time. “We are going to live, but only if you listen to me very, very carefully. You must return me to the couch with all haste.”

I shook my head. “It’s no good, Muhunnad. It’s all over.”

“No, it is not. The River Volga is not dead. I only made it seem this way.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“There isn’t time to explain here. Get me back to the bridge, get me connected back to the harness, then I will tell you. But make haste! We really do not have very much time. The enemy are much nearer than you think.”

“The enemy?”

“There is no Mandate of Heaven. Either she scuttled back to the portal, or she was destroyed during the same attack that damaged us.”

“But you said…”

“I lied. Now help me move!”

Not for the first time that day, I did precisely as I was told.

Having already plotted a route around the obstructions, it did not take anywhere near as long to return to the bridge as it had taken to reach the lifeboats. Once there, I buckled him into the couch—he was beginning to retain some limb control, but not enough to help me with the task—and set about reconnecting the harness systems, trusting myself not to make a mistake. My fingers fumbled on the ends of my hands, as if they were a thousand li away.

“Start talking to me, Muhunnad,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on. Why did you lie about the Mandate!”

“Because I knew the effect that lie would have on Qilian. I wished to give him a reason to leave the ship.

I had seen the kind of man he was. I knew that he would save himself, even if it meant the rest of us dying.”

“I still don’t understand. What good has it done us? The damage to the ship…” I completed the final connection. Muhunnad stiffened as the harness took hold of his nervous system, but did not appear to be in any obvious discomfort. “Are you all right?” I asked warily.

“This will take a moment. I had to put the ship into a deep shutdown, to convince Qilian. I must bring her back system by system, so as not to risk an overload.”

The evidence of his work was already apparent. The bridge lights returned to normal illumination, while those readouts and displays that had remained active were joined by others that had fallen into darkness.

I held my breath, expecting the whole ensemble to shut back down again at any moment. But I should have known better than to doubt Muhunnad’s ability. The systems remained stable, even as they cycled through startup and crash recovery routines. The air circulators resumed their dull but reassuring chug.

“I shall dispense with artificial gravity until we are safely under way, if that is satisfactory with you.”

“Whatever it takes,” I said.

His eyes, still wide open, quivered in their sockets. “I am sweeping local space,” he reported. “There was some real damage to the sensors, but nowhere as bad as I made out. I can see Qilian’s lifeboat. He made an excellent departure.” Then he swallowed. “I can also see the enemy. Three of their ships will shortly be within attack range. I must risk restarting the engines without a proper initialization test.”

“Again, whatever it takes.”

“Perhaps you would like to brace yourself. There may be a degree of undamped acceleration.”

Muhunnad had been right to warn me, and even then it came harder and sooner than I had been expecting. Although I had managed to secure myself to a handhold, I was nearly wrenched away with the abruptness of our departure. I felt acceleration rising smoothly, until it was suppressed by the dampeners.