Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

As they approached the rigger-stations, Jakus heard a shout from the instrumentation section. “We’re getting some activity out there! I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s pretty damn strange. Skipper, I think there may be something coming out of the underlayer!”

“Move it, people!” Hyutu snapped, clapping his hands. “Sound battle stations! This could be the fun we’ve been waiting for.”

The fire roared around Phoenix , a diamond inferno. They were falling, burrowing through the inferno, a storm of tangled thoughts enveloping them as intensely as the fire itself. For a moment, an eternity, it was impossible to tell whose thoughts were whose, and where any of them were going. We’re alive alive are we third ring second ring alive first alive burning can’t hold on …

Am I palagren?… legroeder…?

It was beginning to sort out. Legroeder saw images flickering explosively around him, little windows opening through the flaw, the Flux, maybe reality itself—not memories this time, but something else. The glimpses came so fast he could not absorb them instantly, but only a heartbeat or two after—

—an unfamiliar nebula, roiling with fire and starlife—

—where is that? did you see—? yes, I—

—a place of deep stillness, where the streams of space came to a stop—

—where we were? or are? a singularity? no, I don’t—

—a startling array of connections, flashing open like wildfire across the cosmos, light splintering off into infinity—

—everywhere? riddled with them, space is riddled—

—loops of movement, a circuit of motion in timelessness, an eternal damnation in which four hundred and some souls had been trapped—

—look, the openings—

—scattered like shards of light, hidden nexus points—

—through! we can go through!—

—in the shifting layers, a rigger ship, visible for an instant, then gone… mists of endless Flux…

—and somehow in the shower of images, Legroeder registered something about that glimpse of a ship; there’d been something Kyberlike about it; and he thought, One of the escort ships? Not quite right… and yet such a fleeting glimpse, who could tell. But it hit him again, just possibly they could exert some control over where they were going if not headlong into insanity…

And if that had been one of their ships? They’d lost contact way back before turning to the Sargasso, but what if—?

Focus on that ship! Focus on it! We’re riggers, damn it—riggers!

And even as he thought it, he felt them beginning to find a course through the twisted tangle of spacetime, through the unraveling skein…

And then the inferno suddenly blew itself out, and the ship fell through darkness for endless heartbeats, leaving the quantum splinter behind. Legroeder and the Narseil felt their minds and bodies and souls reconverging, knitting themselves back together again, becoming whole.

Phoenix fell like a meteor out of the folds of the underflux, and burst into the normal Flux with a blinding flash. The net was shaking like an aircraft on the verge of stress failure, the four riggers nearly paralyzed by the shock of the passage. Legroeder shouted hoarsely, Where are we?

And Palagren, I can’t tell!

And when were they? They’d touched the ends of eternity…

Cantha and Ker’sell cried out incoherently as they struggled to bring themselves back to the present, as they all strained to focus on the waves and currents of the Flux battering past them.

Legroeder took short, sharp breaths. We’re alive, he cried silently. Alive! For a fleeting moment, he tried to wrap his memory around the passage—the glimpse of eternity—but it was all coming apart in his mind, like a dream.

Gulping air, he took a quick look around in the net. There was still a net. But what about Impris ? And where were they? The normal Flux, but where?

We’re out! We made it through! shouted a Narseil voice, Cantha’s. The voice, and the answering cries from Palagren and Ker’sell, were almost surreal after the bizarre melding of the passage. Find Impris! he shouted, and his own voice sounded flat and empty of resonance, no longer reverberating against infinity.

He looked around frantically—and suddenly remembered. Impris had been torn from them. Destroyed in the quantum flaw. Impris was gone. Freem’n Deutsch gone. No—! Legroeder started to bellow, then choked and could not finish the cry.

The com came alive again, sputtering. Riggers, report! Can you hear me? It was the captain calling through a hash of static.

Legroeder drew a sharp breath. Get hold of yourself. Let’s go, now; but felt himself moving in molasses. Captain, we’re here—give us a moment— he whispered to the com.

The net was a tattered shambles, barely functional, but power was starting to flow back into it now. Had they really held it together with not much more than the force of will in the quantum flaw? Palagren was starting to reshape the net from the bow backwards, and Legroeder took up the trailing threads to strengthen the stern position.

The com crackled insistently. Captain Glenswarg’s voice finally punched through. Legroeder, report! Where are we? Where is Impris?

Legroeder began to explain that he didn’t know where they were, that Impris had gotten separated from them. He couldn’t bear to say what he knew to be the truth. Gone! Dead! Neutrinos. Nothing left; all a terrible waste. We… got separated during the passage through the quantum flaw …

Yes, yes—what the hell HAPPENED then? I thought my head was going to explode! I couldn’t tell… I mean all of us… the whole crew was immobilized.

Legroeder struggled to explain. That’s… going to take time to figure out, Captain. It was… God, it was like … He could not piece together the words. It was as if his mind had stretched from one end of the universe to the other, but without getting any smarter…

All right, never mind that. Are you searching for Impris?

Searching for what—the neutrinos? Yes, of course, he whispered. But try to get as much instrumentation working as you can. We can’t see a lot right now.

Palagren glanced back and stared at Legroeder with an expression full of—what? Sorrow? Sympathy? Legroeder couldn’t tell. But this ship was hurtling through the mists of the Flux and there was no time to dwell on the question. They had to bring the ship under control, and find out where they were.

Another voice came on. This is nav. My first reading puts us south of the Akeides Nebula. I think we’ve come out near our original prime target, in the KM/C patrol area.

Oh, no.

Attention, everyone! barked a Narseil voice, interrupting the nav officer. It was Agamem, with the weapons and tactics crew. We’ve got a ship coming in fast, heading three-one-two- slash-three-seven. Not Impris. Not one of ours. Coming directly toward us.

No, Legroeder thought.

Glenswarg, with the comlink still open, called at once for general quarters. Have you got an ident on it? he asked the tactical crew.

Negative—but I think it’s Kyber—not one of ours .

Must be KM/C, then. Dammit, put me on the fluxwave to it. Am I on? There was some static, and then, Kyber ship, this is Kyber-Ivan Phoenix. We’ve just made an emergency exit from the Deep Flux. Who are you, please. Kyber ship, Kyber ship…

Legroeder and the other riggers were still trying to spot the other ship, but so far all they could see was swirling mist. They were moving fast; that quantum passage must have given them one hell of a kick.