clumsily. By the time his body started to remember how to manoeuvre, he found himself deposited in his home for the next seventy-two hours: a single private berth containing only a heavily padded acceleration seat and a voice-controlled comms unit.
The berth was cramped and utilitarian by most standards, but after the deprivations of life in Ascension it felt almost decadent in its comfort. Ty wedged himself inside the awkwardly tiny toilet and pulled off his jumpsuit, quickly sponging the grime and urine from his skin.
The water was warm and, as he washed himself, he felt some of the tension and horror of the past few years – the slow dying by cold and starvation – begin to drop away like a second skin he could finally slough off.
He then pulled the oversized jumpsuit back on, and tested the door into the berth. He was far from surprised to find it had been locked from the outside.
After a few minutes’ experimentation with the comms unit, he discovered that it was linked into both local as well as interstellar public tach-net relays. Before very long, he’d managed to navigate his way to a live feed that showed the coreship’s surface.
He gazed down on a forest of shattered and twisted drive-spines. Other ships were visible closer at hand, scattered through the surrounding void, and most were clearly of human construction, but mixed in with them were a few quite unlike anything Ty had seen before.
These latter were equipped with drive-spines that curved out and then forward from a bulbous central hull. Ty realized, after a moment, that these must be the alien Magi ships, news of which had arrived with the first rescue and relief missions.
A heavy cargo lifter drifted in front of the nearest Magi vessel, giving Ty the perspective he needed to see how truly immense the alien craft were. A thrill of awe burned its way up his spine and into his brain. There was a sinuous, organic quality to them that made them look less like something manufactured and more like something that might have evolved in some limitless ocean.
After a while, he managed to drag his eyes away from this spectacle long enough to pull up whatever details he could find concerning the destruction of Night’s End, and everything that had happened since. He absorbed the details with the ferocity of a man starved for knowledge, learning of the Fleet Authority based at Ocean’s Deep, along with what little was known of the Magi starships – and the rumour and conjecture surrounding those directly or peripherally involved with their discovery. Lamoureaux and Willis’s names turned up frequently, though not nearly so often as those of a Dakota Merrick and a Senator Lucas Corso.
He checked the external view to see if anything had changed, and realized the nearest of the Magi ships was drawing closer. By the time it was almost abreast of the cargo ship, the stars were obscured by an energy field.
And then, in something less than the blink of an eye, the coreship was gone, along with its attendant fleet of human and Magi vessels. Instead there was only the broad sweep of the Milky Way, and the diamond sprinkle of stars both near and far away.
A data-file appeared on the display, with a confirmation request. Ty activated it and found himself looking at an up-to-date library of research into the Atn, including not only all of his own published work, but also a set of documents marked ‘classified’.
He speed-read through the summaries of several of the classified files, with a fascination that slowly gave way to anger mingled with envy. Clearly some of his fellow exo-anthropologists had been engaged in classified research for the Legislate: work he’d had no inkling of during his long years of exile.
He read the papers in more detail, soon becoming lost in their minutiae, his struggle for survival on the streets of Ascension now slowly fading into a memory.
Three days later, the same four security personnel escorted Ty into an orbital station
The berth was cramped and utilitarian by most standards, but after the deprivations of life in Ascension it felt almost decadent in its comfort. Ty wedged himself inside the awkwardly tiny toilet and pulled off his jumpsuit, quickly sponging the grime and urine from his skin.
The water was warm and, as he washed himself, he felt some of the tension and horror of the past few years – the slow dying by cold and starvation – begin to drop away like a second skin he could finally slough off.
He then pulled the oversized jumpsuit back on, and tested the door into the berth. He was far from surprised to find it had been locked from the outside.
After a few minutes’ experimentation with the comms unit, he discovered that it was linked into both local as well as interstellar public tach-net relays. Before very long, he’d managed to navigate his way to a live feed that showed the coreship’s surface.
He gazed down on a forest of shattered and twisted drive-spines. Other ships were visible closer at hand, scattered through the surrounding void, and most were clearly of human construction, but mixed in with them were a few quite unlike anything Ty had seen before.
These latter were equipped with drive-spines that curved out and then forward from a bulbous central hull. Ty realized, after a moment, that these must be the alien Magi ships, news of which had arrived with the first rescue and relief missions.
A heavy cargo lifter drifted in front of the nearest Magi vessel, giving Ty the perspective he needed to see how truly immense the alien craft were. A thrill of awe burned its way up his spine and into his brain. There was a sinuous, organic quality to them that made them look less like something manufactured and more like something that might have evolved in some limitless ocean.
After a while, he managed to drag his eyes away from this spectacle long enough to pull up whatever details he could find concerning the destruction of Night’s End, and everything that had happened since. He absorbed the details with the ferocity of a man starved for knowledge, learning of the Fleet Authority based at Ocean’s Deep, along with what little was known of the Magi starships – and the rumour and conjecture surrounding those directly or peripherally involved with their discovery. Lamoureaux and Willis’s names turned up frequently, though not nearly so often as those of a Dakota Merrick and a Senator Lucas Corso.
He checked the external view to see if anything had changed, and realized the nearest of the Magi ships was drawing closer. By the time it was almost abreast of the cargo ship, the stars were obscured by an energy field.
And then, in something less than the blink of an eye, the coreship was gone, along with its attendant fleet of human and Magi vessels. Instead there was only the broad sweep of the Milky Way, and the diamond sprinkle of stars both near and far away.
A data-file appeared on the display, with a confirmation request. Ty activated it and found himself looking at an up-to-date library of research into the Atn, including not only all of his own published work, but also a set of documents marked ‘classified’.
He speed-read through the summaries of several of the classified files, with a fascination that slowly gave way to anger mingled with envy. Clearly some of his fellow exo-anthropologists had been engaged in classified research for the Legislate: work he’d had no inkling of during his long years of exile.
He read the papers in more detail, soon becoming lost in their minutiae, his struggle for survival on the streets of Ascension now slowly fading into a memory.
Three days later, the same four security personnel escorted Ty into an orbital station
Similar Books
