Karl Schroeder - Sun of Suns

Unsmiling, he opened the throttle and began to move away from the visitor's station. There was a lurch as the cable tautened and the nets fell in line behind the bike. That cargo would slow him down, of course.

He might meet the Gehellens on the way out.—What if they got into the visitor's center? Better close the door. He glanced back, and saw that the entrance to the visitor's station was already shut. Crouched beside it in a hurricane of radiance was Venera Fanning.

The cargo net was passing her, just a few yards away. Her eyes met his; there was no appeal in her gaze, just defiance. Hayden nodded once, then deliberately turned back to his piloting. After a moment he felt a slight jerk translate up the cable and through the bike as Venera caught and clung to the passing net.

He opened the throttle and the bike accelerated, but slowly, too slowly as the inferno of dawn welled out from the heart of Candesce. He imagined he could hear the familiar low hiss of the Sun of Suns, even over the scream of the bike. In minutes it became impossible to see; then he could no longer breathe except in shallow gasps; and then he started to tear at his clothing as it burned him wherever it touched. All the while, the air rushed past faster and faster. Before he completely lost his senses he stopped himself from throwing away his jacket and shirt. The light burned his bare skin as much as their touch had.

Gradually the agony abated. Candesce was reaching out to ignite hundreds of miles of air, but he was escaping it, barely.

Squinting ahead, he could see many long fingers of shadow reaching past him. Catamarans or bikes? He turned his head, trying to make out what they were.

Everywhere, the sky was full of shrouded human bodies, all gliding silently in toward Candesce. Joining Aubri. The faint specks of a hundred funeral ships receded into the distance, returning to their ports after unloading their cargoes.

When he was finally able to regain his flapping shirt and jacket, and look around himself, Hayden found that he had no idea where he was. Originally they had planned to navigate by keeping Leaf's Choir in view. They would head for one of Gehellen's neighbors, and from there return to Slipstream. Hayden could be going in the opposite direction now, for all he knew.

It didn't matter. He would find his way, eventually. He couldn't imagine spending the days and nights without Aubri beside him; it seemed impossible that he had done so before. But he had to try. He had responsibilities now.

A few minutes later he felt another vibration through the cable. He looked back, shielding his eyes with one hand.

Venera Fanning made a black cross against the Sun of Suns as she launched herself into the air. They were doing a good sixty or seventy miles an hour at that moment; she swept her arms ahead of her in a diving posture and arrowed away, clothes fluttering.

With luck she would make it to the principalities of Candesce. Though he wished achingly that it could be Aubri silhouetted in exuberance against that light, he hoped Venera would survive and find her way home.

Hay den turned back to his own task. He was done with fighting, done with brooding over the past. His nation and his life had been in shambles for too many years; it was time to rebuild.

He had too much to do to waste his time on resentment.

He settled into the bike's saddle, and opened the throttle wide.