Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

(You can show us the way in, and the way out. And how to find the information we need.)

Deutsch’s image shook its head. He didn’t have to say: Why should I? If he helped the Narseil and got caught, he could be hung, or tortured, or mindwiped…

Legroeder searched for that flicker of hope again; perhaps he had only imagined it.

But the connection with Deutsch had become compelling. He wanted to keep the momentum alive. (There are other things I can show you,) he whispered…

*

A more neutral memory: crewing a ship called Lady Brillig , with three riggers named Janofer, Gev, and Skan. A happy crew, for a time. But though all three of the men were smitten with Janofer, only Skan found the way into her heart, and even that didn’t last. It seemed almost inevitable that the chemistry could not hold, and in the end it didn’t.

Later, much later, he saw Gev Carlyle again; but this time Legroeder was flying under duress for the raiders, and Gev Carlyle was the prey.

(And was your friend captured?) Deutsch asked.

Legroeder remembered the terrible risk he had taken, to fake unexpected turbulence in the Flux. (I found a way to free him.)

The next image was of the stinging rebuke he and his fellow riggers received—and yet, they persuaded their captain that it was bad luck that had caused them to lose their quarry. Now, recalling the moment, Legroeder wondered why he’d never found the courage to save others the same way he’d saved his friend.

Deutsch seemed to recognize the feeling, and for a few moments, there was a subdued silence in the connection. (It was brave of you,) Deutsch said finally, and the images that followed seemed to reflect his confusion over how to respond. It was a series of fragmentary images, glimpses of raider society in a bewildering order, all suffused with an emotion that Legroeder had trouble recognizing. Was it regret? Or Deutsch’s own guilt for the degree to which he’d allowed himself to be absorbed into the raider culture? Flickering through the images were glimpses of that jangling alarm that Deutsch had heard at the start of the battle with H’zzarrelik , and then lost in the confusion.

Legroeder tried, in frustration, to follow.

But rather than clarify, Deutsch changed to images from his more distant past, from times before his capture by the raiders. Learning to fly as a youth, in the balloon fleets of Varinorum Secundus. Later, as a rigger, flying a race down the Grand Canyon Nebula, a strange formation that extended deep through the layers of the Flux. Legroeder sensed echoes of the exhilaration of the race, still alive in Deutsch’s memory. It was enough to make him think that perhaps now was the time to raise another subject…

*

A mighty and storied ship, soon to be lost in the streams of the Flux, Impris gleamed against space, and cut through the mists of the Flux like a speedwhale of Cornice III. Her passengers enjoyed a view that few but riggers usually saw. As she passed by the Great Barrier Nebula, the sight caused even the most jaded of star travelers to draw a sharp breath.

Dissolve to:

The same ship, somehow untarnished by the years, slipping out of the mists like a ghost on a fog-shrouded moor—wailing for help, and drawing the innocent to their doom.

Cut to:

A raider ship closing in on would-be rescuers…

Cut to:

Loss. Darkness. And through the darkness a man, Legroeder, searching the skies with a tireless gaze, searching for answers, searching for the lost Impris …

(I know of this ship,) murmured the other rigger.

Startled, Legroeder cast his gaze to the other stage. (You do? Can you tell me more?)

(I know of it. I have not seen it myself.) Deutsch hesitated. (There is knowledge of it at the outpost.)

Legroeder suppressed a rush of excitement from Deutsch’s words. (Do you think there might be a way to—)

(No, no…) Deutsch shook off the question, and before Legroeder could rephrase it, Deutsch was speaking again, illuminating his stage, sidestepping the question of Impris and offering new memories, new stories…

*

They went back and forth for a time, but eventually Legroeder found his focus slipping, and questions he wanted to ask were vanishing from his thoughts before he could raise them.

(We must stop,) he said, and slowly withdrew his thoughts from the glowing interior of the crystal. He rubbed his eyes, bringing them back into focus in the real-time and real-space of Deutsch’s cabin.

Deutsch’s mirror eyes glinted as Legroeder carefully replaced the crystal in its case. Legroeder couldn’t tell if Deutsch was watching him or staring still into his own ruby-colored crystal. “This has been… interesting,” Legroeder said. “But I must be going. It will be a difficult day tomorrow.” He hesitated. “Thank you.”

Deutsch remained motionless, as though he had not heard. But as Legroeder was turning to leave, the Kyber’s voice rumbled, “You’re welcome.”

Legroeder made his way back out into the corridor, and then to his own cabin. He was stunned to realize, as he fell into his bunk, that three hours had passed in the company of the Kyber rigger. And he was aware, drifting off, that he was by no means finished with this experience. This was going to be a night filled with dreams.

Many dreams…

Freem’n Deutsch remained lost in the world of the gazing crystal for a long time after the other rigger left. His good-bye to Legroeder was generated by a general services augment, which took over the niceties of social interaction when his real thoughts were busy elsewhere.

And busy they were: pondering the visions Legroeder had shown him, and his own memories that Legroeder’s had awakened.

He was stunned to realize how completely he had shielded himself from memories of his own life—memories of a time when he, too, had been an innocent rigger, reveling in the freedom and exhilaration of the net. Memories of the time before he was taken by storm, legs burned off, life transformed to the darkness of captivity and forced labor. His story was remarkably similar to recollections Legroeder had shared, and the remembrance had primed his thoughts for the emergence of far darker visions…

Right now his augment-matrix was struggling to control those visions, to keep them from erupting and destroying his mental equilibrium. It wasn’t quite working; the visions were too powerful to keep out; having begun, they were now an unstoppable force, wracking his mind and body with nausea and revulsion.

It was one thing to have endured an attack as victim; but the other kind of darkness came from living through the maelstrom as an attacker, loosing the great waves of fury that sent the quarry reeling in terror…

*

Doom doom doom…

The drumming would reverberate in his sleep as long as he lived, even when his protection circuits were supposed to suppress it. And rising from the drumming was the growing din of other sounds… the screams, the crackle of weapons… gunshots echoing in the canyons of his mind…

And the smoldering crimson glow of fire, illumining all of his memories…

Deutsch shuddered, struggling to make it stop. Why weren’t the protection circuits working? Something was wrong, something gone squirrelly, something not keeping the damn memories under control.

Almost as though the augments wanted him to remember…

*

Before the trade to Ivan, rigging under the flag of Carlotta, it had been even worse than under Te’Gunderlach. No, damn it, stop . He didn’t want to relive…