Attanasio, AA - Solis

Mei tumbles free of the collision and scrabbles with quavery legs toward the open portal of the command pod. Throwing off the dented truck, Aparecida leaps after her. A scourging hiss rips the air as tapers of steel claw the air at

Mei's back. Flung forward again by her jetpak, Mei bounds with shock fright into the command pod, drops the plasteel case, and throws herself at the switch box.

The portal wrinkles shut before Aparecida's flailing blades narrow close enough to find flesh, and Mei collapses in a quaking heap. Three hot raps vibrate through the pod, and then there is silence but for her frantic breathing. She gropes for the comlink in her shoulder pad and splutters, "Mr. Charlie?"

"Mei Nili!" Charles is agog with fear. When she cut him off, he was sure

Aparecida had killed her and he was on his way to the dissector. "I-I thought..

. Are you all right?" "Yes," she gasps.

"What happened? Where are we?" "We're back-back in the pod."

"'What about Aparecida? Is she still after us?"

"Yes. My escape-I couldn't get away. I had to come back." "We're still trapped?"

"For now." Mei pushes herself to her feet and leans against the switch box. Her fear-buzzing fingers steady only under the greatest concentration, and she manages to transmit a hailing frequency to The Laughing Life. But there is no response. From that she knows that the cruiser is either destroyed or maintaining strict silence because it has drifted within striking range of Wolf Star. "We'll have to wait a while before Munk can contact us again."

"What are you going to do?"

Mei picks up the plasteel case and notes the smudges where Aparecida's projectiles impacted. An open, lonely feeling-a tender sense of

vulnerability-replaces the dazed and jangled aftermath of her terror-stricken flight. This remarkable being-a man from a lost era a thousand years gone-has been reduced to this-an object of barter, useful as an ore-factory controller or a shield-a thing that she has risked her life to steal. "You've got your ears, Mr. Charlie. Now I'm going to give you your eyes."

"You can do that?"

"I think so." She places the case back in the crystal frustum and returns to the switch box. By channeling to Charles the input from the light sensors in the ceiling that monitor the interior of the pod, she opens for him a rainbow-tinted vision.

"I can see! It looks like I'm floating above you."

"There are ground-level light sensors, too," Mei says. "I'll connect you to them as well. These are what the jumpers use to scrutinize the controller plates by remote."

"Yes! I've found the reflex. I can will it myself now."

"There are also light sensors outside the pod. If you try..."

"There it is," he says in a cold whisper. "Is that Aparecida? She's huge-grotesque-"

"What is she doing?"

"Squatting in front of me. She's got these thick, barbed cables waving slowly around her-and her face, it's-"

"I know. We've met."

"How long can we stay in here?"

"Not long. Wolf Star will break the codes soon and then usurp control of the pod."

"What are we going to do?"

Mei smiles, and the sensation is so unfamiliar it startles her, opening her lungs to a giddy sigh.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Mr. Charlie, you said 'we.' I just think it's funny that we're in this together-me and a thousand-year-old man."

"Actually, Mei Nili, I'm scared shitless, as we used to say in my time."

"I am too, Mr. Charlie. I am too. And for a long time I wasn't." She settles

to the floor and leans back against the jetpak. "For a long time I really didn't care if I lived or died."

"You were depressed. Why?"

"That doesn't matter. It would sound silly to you-a man who already died once, who lived in a time when everyone had to die."

"You lost someone you love," Mr. Charlie surmises.

"I lost everyone I love. They weren't supposed to die. No one is supposed to die where I come from."

"That doesn't sound silly to me. I tried to escape death myself. But after what I've been through-crammed in here, forced to work as a machine slave-I would rather die than go back to that. Cowardly as that must seem, that is what's happened to me. Really, though, at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us is to go on living."

"For what? Simply to exist?"

"No. That's vile. But look at you, Mei Nili. You are beautiful. And you've told me that everyone is beautiful now. Disease, old age, distortion are done with, and at last, humanity attains the physical dignity that before we could only claim in spirit."

"That was the spirit I left Earth to find. Physical dignity is not enough, Mr. Charlie."

"No, I suppose not. Much as I hate to admit it, the old philosophers were right. We sing best in our chains. Even so, I would love to taste some of the freedom humanity has won in the thousand years since I had a body. Is there any hope we can get away to that place you told me of-to Solis-where they will shape a new body for me?"

Mei shrugs disconsolately. "Only if we can convince Munk to override his primary programming and detonate the explosives."

"Patch me into The Laughing Life. Let me talk with him." "He won't listen to you. He's an androne."

"Yet when he first contacted me he introduced himself as something more-a rogue androne with what he called contra-parameter programming installed by the Maat. He's capable of free will."

"Not if he can help it," Mei says with a gleam of anger.

"Then we have to make it necessary. We have to give him no choice but to use his freedom."

"I don't understand."

"Mei Nili, you gambled your life to save me. I know that serves your

self-interest. You need me to gain entry to Solis for yourself. Yet if you want, you can surrender me to Aparecida this minute and your life will be spared. You can go on living."

"I didn't come this far to give up. If I have to die now, at least I won't be running away from life-which is what I was doing before."

"I'm glad to bear you say that. There's a chance, then, that we can get out of here. But we'll have to gamble our lives. Are you willing?"

"What do I have to do?" "Let me talk to Munk."

Mei pushes to her feet. At the switch box, she finds that the transmission circuit is already active, and Munk's voice is droning,".. . hear me? Respond, Jumper Nili."

"Munk! We're back in the pod. We couldn't make it to the surface."

"Jumper Nili, I was ready to believe you were dead." "We will be soon, Munk, if you don't help us." "Jumper Nili, don't ask-"

"It's not me this time that's asking."

"Munk? This is Charles Outis speaking. Can you hear me?"

"Who?" the androne asks. "There's noise in your transmission I can't decipher."

"This is Mr. Charlie. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Mr. Charlie. I regret we have not been able to liberate you just yet."

"You can liberate me, Munk. Detonate the explosives immediately." "I can't do that, Mr. Charlie."

"You can-and you must. Mei Nili is going to open the pod entry now. If you don't detonate the explosives at once, Aparecida will destroy us. Do you understand?"

Mei's heart surges, and she turns with shock from the switch box.

"Jumper Nili, do not do this. I will swing about for another drop-dead flyby. Try again to evade Aparecida and get to the surface."

In her astonishment, Mei says nothing. This is it. The clarity of Charles's decision penetrates her, and all the torn and muddied raging that had carried

her from Earth to this lifeless rock in the preterit void lifts away. Tears come quietly to her eyes.

"Jumper Nili!"

Mei blinks away her tears and nods toward the sensors, holding Charles's gaze and not quite smiling. "I'm setting a ten-second lag on the pod entry, Munk. If Mr. Charlie and I are going to survive, it's entirely up to you."