Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

“You have no opinion on why she was trapped, then?”

Cantha flicked his fingers. “If you want my opinion —I believe there was an element of bad luck in the route they followed. They may have frequented a route that took them—perhaps over and over—close to the folds, and the underlying flaw, without their ever being aware of it. They may have been perilously close on those occasions when they reported difficulty. And then, one time, they didn’t just come close.”

“They fell in?”

“Precisely.” Cantha paused. “This flaw is extremely long, and possibly infinite, and branches through several dimensions. I doubt it’s an isolated cosmological phenomenon. Other flaws may be closer to the surface in some places and farther in others. But in any case, difficult to detect, with our current state of knowledge.”

Legroeder stirred. “Cantha’s being way too conservative. Coming out of the flaw, I saw quite clearly … that space is full of these things.” He gazed hard at YZ/I. “If you want to find them the hard way, the surest thing you can do is send a whole fleet through the underflux.”

A long silence followed, during which YZ/I seemed frozen. Then he breathed again, and rose slowly to his feet. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I want to show you something.” As he turned, the back wall of his command center paled, and a doorway opened. “If you would follow me, please…”

Legroeder and the others exchanged glances as they followed YZ/I down a darkening passageway. The only light, for a few seconds, came from YZ/I’s body, and the tip of his cigar. Then all the darkness around slowly came to life with stars, a sprinkling at first, and then a multitude. The stars were below them as well as above, and on all sides. They seemed to be standing on a narrow catwalk, suspended in space. Legroeder’s pulse quickened as he saw the swirl of the galactic spiral arm; then the stars slowly wheeled until they were looking directly into the Sagittarian sector, in the direction of the galactic core. Out in those clusters of stars and nebulas, he knew, lay the Well of Stars, the next great sector of space to be colonized. By the Free Kyber, if YZ/I had his way.

“You know why I’ve brought you here?” YZ/I asked, his voice reverberating softly among the stars. No one answered. YZ/I raised a hand, and the stars slowly softened to a blur, until they were looking at a vast chart of the Flux, of the territory between where they were now, and the Well of Stars. The view changed gradually, reflecting a descent into ever-deeper levels of the Flux. “Gentlemen, I have only one overriding interest. And that is for you to show me: where are the quantum flaws that endanger my fleet?” He turned and his eyes burned with light. “Rigger Legroeder, you say you saw them. Can you put them on the map for me?”

Legroeder hesitated. He thought about the information that the implants had displayed to him—arrays of spacetime splinters that stretched out toward infinity through the underflux. He felt his implants continuing to buzz as they sifted through the mountains of information. He felt near-certainty that he would, in time, be able to produce just such a map. But not yet. Not until the implants finished their work. For a moment he reached out, as though to touch the Flux. Then he stopped and shook his head. “Not yet. But later, I think—after we’ve analyzed the information—”

“Later,” YZ/I echoed. “I see. And where is all this raw data that you need to analyze?”

Legroeder felt himself unable to speak.

“Some of it is in our data records,” Cantha volunteered. “But most—”

“Is where?” YZ/I growled.

Legroeder felt a shortness of breath. Why couldn’t he just say it?

Freem’n Deutsch floated forward. “It is in our minds, YZ/I. And our augments. That is probably where the most important part of it is.” He glanced at Legroeder. “And Legroeder here… well, you seem to have seen more of it than the rest of us. That talent of yours…”

Legroeder started to speak, but something caught in his mind. He felt as if a fog were settling back around his brain, as if some part of him were resolutely determined not to share with anyone.

“I believe,” Cantha said, “that the only way to wholly clarify the information is to bring Impris and her crew to the Narseil Rigging Institute for study. There, I am certain, we will find the answers we need.”

A circlet of light slid up YZ/I’s body like a ring on a pole. “The Narseil Institute.” YZ/I looked as if he were involved in a long inner dialogue, against the swirling colors of the Flux. He was silent a long time. Finally he said, “No, I don’t believe that will do. I believe what we will do is study the ship here , quite thoroughly. And see if we can’t learn the answers ourselves. Eh?”

The Narseil riggers stiffened. Legroeder tried not to betray the tension in his own throat as he said carefully, “You did promise to release the ship to return home.”

YZ/I looked faintly amused. “And so I shall… in due course. But we have extremely capable people here, and here is where the study will be done. After all—would you expect me to believe that the Narseil Institute, if it had custody of Impris , would gladly hand over all of its findings to the Free Kyber Republic?”

The Narseil were silent.

YZ/I leveled a gaze at Legroeder. “And what about the knowledge in your head?”

Legroeder studied the palms of his hands for a moment. “I’ve… already told you what I saw and felt.” Threads of light, a web work of flaws… the beginnings of the map that would come …

“But the rest of it… the hard data …”

Legroeder swallowed.

YZ/I was flickering like a ghost come alive.

Legroeder felt behind his ears. That buzzing vagueness… a feeling of cotton stuffed between himself and the implants. “I don’t… know. These are Narseil implants. I’m… having a little trouble getting access to some of the information myself.” His voice sounded stupid even to himself, as he said it. What are these damn implants doing to me?

YZ/I pulsed as if he were about to explode. “You’re having difficulty gaining access? Well, then—” he glanced at the Narseil “—maybe we can help you get access. We have people here who are quite expert in that sort of work.” Legroeder recoiled in alarm, as YZ/I closed his eyes for a moment and appeared to subvocalize. His eyes opened. “Some of my people will be coming to take you to our labs. We’ll see what we can do, eh?” He took a puff from his cigar, blew the smoke out into the Flux. “ Just helping, you understand. All right?”

Legroeder stared at him, appalled. Helping, he thought, images of DeNoble flashing in his mind. Indoctrination… reinforcement… punishment… I know how the Kyber like to help . “Oh, no you don’t,” he whispered, barely aware of his own voice speaking.

YZ/I smiled chillingly. “Oh, yes I do.” He raised his chin slightly and spoke past him. “Yes, Lieutenant—in here with your men.”

The room didn’t look that terrible, really; it was a plain white laboratory, with a couple of high-backed, padded seats that might have been in a dentist’s office. But when the tech pointed toward one of the seats, Legroeder found himself thinking of the outpost’s maintainers working in their little artificial world in a vault, and the guards and med-techs who kept them there.

Legroeder kept his gaze implacable and stood unmoving in the center of the room. He wished to hell now he’d fought this business in YZ/I’s office, but it hadn’t seemed a smart idea at the time. And now his Narseil friends had been whisked away elsewhere, supposedly to report to their own commander. I may have no choice about this, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to just step into it for them .