Steven Harper - Dreamer

At last they reached the submersile airlock. Garinn shoved his way to the controls. The submersile was a series of clear polymer and plastic bubbles. One large bubble formed a center ringed by six smaller bubbles. By a miracle it appeared undamaged. The group crowded in, body pressed against body, the need for survival overriding any sense of status or propriety. The submersile wasn’t designed for so many passengers and Vidya hoped the engines were up to the challenge.

Dr. Say was the last one at the airlock. To Vidya’s horror, she pulled a guard pistol from the pocket of her lab coat and pointed straight at Vidya. Her eyes were wild. The guard tensed, but most of them had lost their pistols, and those who had them couldn’t get to them in the press of bodies.

“We aren’t leaving without the experiment!” Say said over the alarms.

The sub shuddered. “That one was close,” Garinn shouted. “They’re starting to send the charges this way.”

“Get off the sub,” Say screeched. “You have to get off to make room for the experiment!”

“Sejal!” Vidya cried.

“I can’t see her from back here!” Sejal yelled.

“Move,” Say ordered, “or I’ll start-”

Vidya screamed and pointed over Say’s shoulder. Say turned, and Vidya’s foot lashed out. Say’s pistol went spinning away.

“Get inside now!” Vidya ordered. “This is your last chance, woman!”

The look on Say’s face reminded Vidya of a cornered animal. She stood in the airlock for a moment longer, then turned and ran down the corridor. Vidya slammed the airlock shut. The installation’s alarms were instantly muted.

“Go!” she snapped.

Garinn released the clamps and went. The submersile lurched sluggishly. Vidya stood with her back pressed against the airlock door. Already the air was humid and close. Vidya noticed several of the passengers, including the guard, were panting.

“We need to breathe slowly and evenly,” she announced in a voice much calmer than she felt. “Hyperventilating will use up more oxygen than the filters can provide. Breathe with me now. In…out…”

She kept up the exercise, using the same voice she used at meetings when she had to persuade people to do what was right for the neighborhood. At her urging, they stayed focused on their breathing and had less time to think about the dangers outside. Garinn sweated over the controls in the bubble that made up the submersile’s bridge. After a while, Vidya noticed that although the explosions continued, they had less force behind them.

“I think we’re clear,” Garinn announced at last.

A ragged cheer went up and Vidya allowed herself to slump against the wall.

Dr. Jillias Say splashed and waded back toward the Nursery through water warm and salty as blood. Power had failed in this section, and the emergency lights provided only dim illumination. The alarms had cut out as well, leaving her breathing and sloshing as the only sounds.

There had to be a way to save the experiment. There had to be. She could find a solution if she just looked hard enough.

And then it came to her. The experiment could save her. All she had to do was bring one or two subjects out of cryo-sleep. Once they were awake and back in the Dream, they would fill everyone with despair again, including the sailors on the battleship. Once that happened, the crew would stop firing on the base, giving her time to work out the next step. Certainly the subjects would exclude her from whatever it was they did if she was the one who took them out of the cryo-units.

An explosion knocked her off her feet. Her mouth and nose filled with brine. For a moment she was a child again, fleeing the invaders with her family. Explosions smashed the air around them, and she saw the terror on her mother’s face. They fled through the ruined city even as Say fled through leaky hallways, until they turned a corner and ran straight into a contingent of enemy soldiers. She could still hear their laughter as they raped her sister and mother, then turned to her. She was not going to let that happen anymore. If she just saved the experiment, everything would be all right. She could sleep without hearing her mother’s screams or her sister’s cries.

The Nursery was waist-deep in water. Say rushed into it and scrabbled at the nearest unit. It was underwater. Say would have to yank the subject above the water line the moment she opened the unit. She was fumbling at the controls when a detonation crashed through the room. Dr. Jillias Say had time to look up and scream once before the ocean burst through the ceiling and swept down to claim her.

It took them over an hour to reach land. By then, the submersile was so hot, Vidya was drenched in sweat. She was exhausted as well, and she had no idea what time it was. It felt as if weeks had passed, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours. Her entire body ached.

As it turned out, the sun had just set when they arrived at the shore. Garinn was able to extend the tunnel up to the beach, a good thing since the submersile was too heavily laden to surface. Everyone rushed to exit except Garinn and Kri. Before Vidya realized what was going on, the exit tunnel slid back underwater and a trail of bubbles indicated the submersile was moving away. She was too tired to care.

They stood on the beach. City lights gleamed further up the shore, perhaps a kilometer away. The air was delightfully cool after the submersile’s close quarters. The slaves huddled together uncertainly and the guard did the same. Vidya gathered her husband, son, and daughter to her in giant embrace and tears trickled down her face.

A cold hand on Vidya’s arm broke the moment. She turned to see Jeren.

“You’re all under arrest,” he said.

Sejal tensed beside her and Vidya stared coldly at Jeren. After a long moment, he released her.

“We are all free here,” Vidya said. She pitched her voice to include the slaves. “No one is enslaved to anyone else. Any who wish to come with us may do so.”

The four of them turned and walked away, hand in hand. After a moment, two of the slaves followed, then four, then all twelve. Five of the guard did so as well. The rest watched them go.

“What is my wife doing?” Prasad asked.

Vidya smiled. “Following the advice of a wise man who said, ‘Our old community was destroyed. If we wish to survive, we must build a new one.’“

And she paused in the walking long enough to kiss him.

THE RINGS AROUND PLANET GEM

Tears of joy trickled down Padric Sufur’s face. Reports were already filtering in from his courier ships, the ones he had placed in strategic spots all over the galaxy for just this moment. He had done it. The Dream was all but useless for communication. Governments everywhere were in chaos. The war between the Independence Confederation and the Empire of Human Unity had fallen apart. Generals and admirals, safely ensconced on their home worlds light years from the actual battleground, had no quick way to send orders, and all military powers were based on a quick way to send orders. A few skirmishes had managed to break out, but nothing serious. War as Padric knew it had ended.

The holographic screen winked out at Padric’s command. He wiped the tears from his cheeks, picked up his wine glass, and wandered over to the wall of the clear dome. The glittering road of ice that circled ahead of his asteroid and around Gem, the gas giant, stood out achingly clear among the stars. He took a smooth sip of wine, letting it play over his tongue. One very interesting report stated that her Imperial Majesty Empress Kan maja Kalii had disappeared in all the chaos. Her bodyguards had found the crown jewels that always orbited her head piled carelessly on her throne, the Imperial robes in an untidy heap on the floor. Fate-or Padric-had provided her the opportunity and she had taken it.