Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

Indeed, replied Deutsch.

Take us away, then .

Aye, sir.

The ship roared left, then right, and leaped into the chute. It was like the first big hill of a v’rticoaster—screaming hurtling down a streamer of energy that crackled as they dove—and finally, with a great gout of fire, spat them out into the freedom of the open Flux.

The early part of Flechette ’s voyage was routine, a passage through a little-traveled no man’s land where the currents tended to be weak and unpredictable. It was a challenging enough region to rig through in its own right, requiring a thorough knowledge of the terrain; but the main reason few outsiders came this way was that these currents didn’t really go anywhere, in terms of normal-space destinations. That, of course, was what made it a perfect place for hiding a pirates’ fortress. Few would come looking, and if anyone did, the chances were excellent that they would lose their way. Golen Space in general was a risky place for the unwary rigger; this particular pocket of Golen Space was avoided even by raiders from other outposts.

Rigger Deutsch led his crew through an atmosphere of oddly swirled clouds, seemingly frozen against the sky. The clouds appeared unmoving; and yet within their coiled vortices were narrow ribbons of movement, and it was along those ribbons that Flechette ’s riggers threaded their way. Gradually, the clouds thickened and became more solidly sculpted, and the strength and visibility of the currents picked up. They were beginning to move out of the no man’s land of secret places, toward regions where starship traffic might be found.

Deutsch was not privy to the exact nature of their mission; the captain was as tight-lipped as ever. But rumors had been whispered that their orders were somehow different this time, that they were going after an unusual prey… that they were searching for a particular prey, and they might allow others to pass unimpeded. If so, this was a significant change from the norm. On the other hand, it was possible that the rumor was nothing but wind and vapor.

They would just have to wait and see what the captain revealed, at the moment of contact.

Droom. Droom.

The low rumble quivered through the net, and fire began to flicker around the edges of Deutsch’s vision.

The morale programs.

Deutsch hated them, but there was no escape, for him or anyone else. He could resist their effects for a time; but in the end, they were a foolproof system. They were channeled through both the augments and the net itself, and if the augments found insufficient effect, the morale input was increased automatically. As program images emerged in the net, they came to seem a part of the natural landscape, part of the larger vision, and the riggers formed and shaped them as they banked through the energy streams of the Flux.

Fire. Flames coloring the energy streams.

Droom. Droom.

They were the flames of the hunter on the prowl, the flames of the corsair. Soon the flames would spread, and would reach out into the nets of other ships; they would strike fear into the heart of the prey. Already, Deutsch could feel his own adrenaline starting to pump. There was no ignoring the beat; it was like a military march, an orchestration driving the blood lust of a hunt. It was primal and inescapable, tapping somewhere into the reptilian brain. After the first few minutes, Deutsch and his fellow riggers no longer wanted to stave it off. Resistance, revulsion, and fear gave way to inexorable desire.

The flames would soon lick higher still. Higher, and fiercer, and hotter. But not yet. Not until Flechette had found her prey. Then and only then would they burn their true burn.

Did you hear something back there? Legroeder glanced behind them through the eerie undersea passage. They had been gliding through an endless, watery corridor, irregular and enigmatic, like an abandoned structure from some lost civilization.

Voco, the phlegmatic stern-rigger, answered, Just an echo. Always echoes in places like this.

Oh, said Legroeder, straining to peer back through the mists.

If the Narseil mission plan still made him uneasy, their riggers had nonetheless impressed him with their prowess in the Flux. They seemed to have an uncannily clear sense of where they were going, so clear that it left Legroeder a little breathless. They were prowling like rangers on a patrol through a wilderness. They seemed to notice signs in the Flux that Legroeder could not begin to fathom, subtle changes in current patterns that his implants translated for him as “smell” and “feel,” but only after the Narseil had pointed them out.

Lacking any specific knowledge of where to look for pirate ships, they were trying to find their quarry by acting like prey. The plan was to shadow the shipping lanes that grazed the boundaries of Golen Space, lanes where the risk of pirate attack had lately been on the increase. It was a region where few ships would ever have ventured, were it not for an accident of astrography that put Golen Space squarely between two long arms of more civilized and heavily traveled space. Shippers journeying between the two arms faced a choice of a dangerous passage skirting Golen Space, or a much longer way around, as the Flux currents went. Many, indeed, took the long way. But there were always shippers—and passengers—who deemed the risks worth taking, in exchange for shorter travel times. Some even went through Golen Space for the fastest trips; but the majority chose pathways just outside the boundaries, which offered at least the illusion of greater safety, combined with speed. It was in such a passage that Ciudad de los Angeles had been attacked.

H’zzarrelik , however, was well to the galactic south of where that attack had occurred. The Narseil hoped to attract the attention of a different band of pirates, by seeming to have lost their way along the edge of Golen Space. They had, for a time, kept H’zzarrelik on a flight path such as an ordinary liner might have taken; but a few days ago, seven days into the journey, they had slipped off into the borderland, where ships losing their way might blunder. And where, presumably, raiders might lurk. They hardly needed to pretend. One mistaken twist in a current could easily send them off course. It had taken no great effort for Legroeder to imagine them actually lost.

A couple of days after their passage into the edge of Golen Space, they had entered a region that seemed particularly murky and mysterious. The undersea imagery was a natural, almost inevitable, choice. The submarine image had given way to a sleek forcefield that flowed back from the lead rigger, and up and over Legroeder’s head, so that he could sit in a cross-legged yoga pose, facing the oncoming stream. It was purely an illusion—his real body was reclining, motionless, in the clamshell rigger-station—but it felt as real as flesh to him. His main job, just now, was to be alert for features that the Narseil, with their alien perceptions, might miss.

They continued gliding through the olive-oil-green seafloor structure, the ship stretched out behind them in a sinuous ribbon of silver. It seemed to Legroeder that the foreboding eeriness emanated not just from the surroundings, but also from Ker’sell, in the keel station. Ker’sell was the one Narseil rigger who seemed suspicious of Legroeder, and seemed drawn in general to darkly moody images—a trait with which Legroeder, ironically, could empathize. Legroeder couldn’t do anything about Ker’sell’s moods, so he concentrated on smoothing out their movement as they glided down channels and corridors and tunnels, like ghostly miners pursuing memories in a flooded coal mine, or archaeologists pursuing the past.