12

THE JOURNEY TO NEPTUNE COULD BE COMPLETED MUCH more quickly if Abel put the Persephone’s mag engines into overdrive mode. However, that would tax them to the limit, holding him to slower speeds for some days to come. Abel projects that he’ll probably require the ship’s highest level of velocity to escape with Noemi after freeing her.

This means he won’t reach Neptune for hours. He has no solid data nor even any theories as to what he will find there. Therefore he can’t construct any meaningful plans, much less calculate their relative probabilities of success. Abel will spend the hours of the journey with little to do besides worry about Noemi.

He’d always understood himself to have greater capacities for patience and calm than humans. This self-assessment will have to be reconsidered.

As the Persephone clears Saturn’s orbit, he stands in his cabin, which used to be Mansfield’s, and attempts to fix his full focus on the wall. He doesn’t dislike the once-famous painting already hanging there, one of Monet’s Water Lilies. But impressionist techniques aren’t as effective on mechs. Humans look at the swirls of paint and see the translucency of water. Abel sees swirls of paint. Understanding the illusion is not the same as experiencing it.

The Kahlo is propped in one corner. He’d thought to hang that one instead, so the room would reflect his preferences instead of his creator’s, but it’s so small—and it’s not the kind of painting to be peacefully stared at while falling asleep. It demands attention and analysis. It disquiets.

Right now, when Abel feels as though his every circuit is overloading with the need to reach Noemi, he doesn’t need any more disquiet. The water lilies can stay where they are.

What could pull Mansfield so far from home when his condition is so frail—and when he believed Abel to be within hours of his possession? A move so dangerous suggests other involved parties with power even greater than Burton Mansfield’s, and urgent priorities still unguessed. Still, whatever cards Mansfield has left to play will be played in pursuit of one primary goal: immortality. Noemi’s kidnapping proves that Abel is still Mansfield’s only sure route to avoiding death—

Your thoughts are becoming highly repetitive, Abel reminds himself. This is counterproductive. Find other points of focus.

He takes another step back, trying yet again to see the Monet as a human would. He ought to have asked Noemi about it. Maybe that night after he nearly froze doing work on the outer hull, and she lay in here beside him as he thawed—he could’ve asked her then—

A chime sounds, indicating an incoming communications transmission, a response to his earlier signal. Abel instantly dashes to the nearest console because he finally has something useful to do.

The screen lights up to reveal Harriet and Zayan, crowded together into what looks like a public, open-air comm booth. In the distance behind them he sees green hills shrouded in clouds, serene and beautiful; they appear to be visiting some of the last surviving tea gardens on Earth.

“You’re all right!” Harriet says, a huge grin on her face. “Noemi’s safe and we’re getting back to work.”

Zayan laughs. “That wasn’t much of a vacation! Still, if Noemi’s okay, that’s all that matters.”

“Noemi is not yet safe, but your vacation has ended—if you choose to take on this work, which I hope you will.” Abel cannot require them to do this, only ask.

“What’s going on?” Harriet asks. “How do we help Noemi?”

“I don’t need your help to rescue Noemi,” he replies. “I need you to assist a friend of mine who is a member of Remedy.”

Both Harriet and Zayan sit back, with near identical expressions of shock. It’s Zayan who finds his voice first. “You swore to us you were never in Remedy.”

“Nor have I been. But I have contacts within the group, and one of those contacts needs help.”

Harriet’s shaking her head so vehemently that her braids shake. “No. No way. Abel, we love working with you, but signing up with terrorists? Never.”

“Ephraim Dunaway is a member of the moderate wing of Remedy,” Abel says. He uses Ephraim’s name deliberately. Harriet and Zayan will see it as a show of trust, which it is. Even if they won’t help, they won’t turn Ephraim in. Abel needs them to understand that he knows this. “He’s one of the people who’re working to get control from the more violent wing. More to the point, he’s a doctor, and he’s trying to save Genesis.”

“Genesis?” Zayan shakes his head, as if to clear it. “Wait, how did Genesis come into this?”

Abel’s explanation plays a symphony of reactions over their faces—horror, then hope, then uncertainty. He has no idea how they’ll answer, but he must ask: “I can send the contact information for Ephraim. If you can reach out to him and help him find a few ships to hire—Vagabonds you personally know and trust—”

“Can’t do it.” Harriet folds her arms across her chest. “You were at the Orchid Festival bombing the same as us. You saw what they did. You tell me this Dunaway wasn’t a part of that, all right, I believe you. But I don’t trust Remedy, and I’m not putting my neck on the line for them. Right, Zayan?”

But Zayan doesn’t answer. Only when she’s turned to him, eyes wide, does he say, “I think we have to do something.”

“Are you batcrap crazy?” Harriet explodes. “This is Remedy. You seriously want us to join Remedy?”

Zayan turns toward her, and Abel is no longer a participant in the conversation, only an observer. “Of course not. But that’s not what this is. We wouldn’t be attacking anyone, just helping run medicine to Genesis. That’s different.”

“You really think Earth’s going to let medical ships or anything else go through the Genesis Gate?” Harriet demands.

Abel doesn’t get a chance to answer, because Zayan immediately says, “That’s where Remedy comes in. They’d be—you know—the muscle. But we’d be doing good. Helping people.”

Harriet’s ire has faded, but her eyes remain wary. “We could get caught.”

“Yeah, well, nobody said doing the right thing was easy. And I know you. You’d never be able to live with yourself if you walked away from this.” Zayan turns from Harriet back to Abel. “So, what, we’d help this Ephraim Dunaway guy find some good Vagabond ships to hire—”

“No,” Harriet cuts in. Her tone of voice has changed, become electric. “We reach out to lots of Vagabonds. Tons of them. If you’re going to get a shipment through the Genesis Gate, you’re going to need as big a fleet as possible. You’re going to need… hundreds of ships, probably. If we put the word out that we’re standing up to Earth, putting together a rescue convoy, strength in numbers and all that—I bet we’ll find lots of volunteers.” To Zayan, who’s staring at her openmouthed, she says, “Well, if we’re doing this thing, let’s not half-ass it.”

Zayan grins at her. “This is why I love you.”

“Is that the only reason?” She arches an eyebrow.

Abel knows from experience that Zayan and Harriet are fully capable of flirting and taking care of key tasks at the same time, but this practice will leave them with no attention left over for him. “I’ll be out of contact for a while,” he says. “Work with Ephraim, trust your own judgment, and don’t wait to hear from me.”

That brings them back to him, concern clear on both their faces. “All right,” Harriet says slowly, “but if you need help, you call us. Anywhere, anytime. Got it?”

“Understood.”

It occurs to Abel to wonder whether Burton Mansfield has ever had friends who would pledge their loyalty to him, despite danger, without any hope of personal reward. Maybe not. Maybe that was one reason why he made Abel and wove Directive One so thoroughly throughout his brain. Mansfield chose to program love rather than earn it.

Abel knows down to the second the moment he’ll be within sensor range of Neptune’s moon Proteus. Yet he waits on the bridge for almost an hour beforehand, unable to focus on anything else, staring at the viewscreen and willing the alert to sound.

Without Zayan and Harriet, Abel doesn’t bother with his captain’s chair. Instead he sits at ops, checking and double-checking every system on the ship, waiting, waiting—

The proximity alert sounds. Instantly he brings up the long-range images of the moon Proteus. His viewscreen fills with unexpected details; he frowns as he identifies a docking framework and a passenger ship—an enormous passenger ship, one that could carry perhaps ten thousand individuals on shorter journeys, or thoroughly provision and entertain a small number in great style. Given the appearance of the ship, Abel suspects the latter. This vessel—surely the Osiris Mansfield spoke of—is as intricate and golden as any piece of jewelry found in an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb, with designs in styles no doubt meant to evoke that comparison.

Abel frowns at its gaudiness. The extravagance is of course wasteful, so it must serve some purpose.

Its use can’t be tactical, he thinks. Therefore it is emotional. The passengers of this ship are no doubt rich, and they may wish for the ship to reflect their wealth and status. So the elaborate decoration is… symbolic.

He wonders whether Burton Mansfield helped choose the ship’s name. As Abel knows from experience, Mansfield likes symbols and allusions. In the ancient Egyptian myth, the great god Osiris is murdered by his brother Set, who dismembers the body and scatters the pieces far and wide. Osiris’s wife, Isis, and the other goddesses bring the pieces back together, though there’s one part they never find: the penis. So Isis creates a phallus out of gold for Osiris, then copulates with her reequipped husband, causing him to be resurrected as king of the world of the dead.

Mansfield would of course be drawn to the idea of rebirth. Surely, Abel thinks, it can’t be about the replacement phallus, though Freudian theory might find a link between that and the enormous size of the Osiris.

Movement at the edges of the ship’s framework proves to be a large squadron of fighter mechs, swooping through the area and skimming the surface, protecting every millimeter of the hull. It may be impossible to sneak aboard. Abel considers turning himself over to Mansfield—or appearing to, feigning his defeat just long enough to get on board—but that would require him to fight his way out—

The border of the viewscreen flashes yellow: new ships in proximity. Abel’s sharp vision picks up motion around Proteus and Triton as well. Immediately he focuses multiple lenses on each motion, bringing up several dozen vessels of various sizes, all of which seem to be moving in on the Osiris’s location, faster than normal passenger ships or freighters.

“Remedy,” Abel says aloud.

Not the Remedy faction he sought either—not the moderates and medical professionals who founded the resistance movement. Those people wouldn’t be attacking a passenger ship. These can only be the radicals. The dangerous ones. The terrorists.

The Persephone is still several minutes away, and his ship can’t turn back a force of that size on its own. Abel, used to easily overpowering and outthinking humans, is unprepared for the knowledge that he’s outmatched. Even if the Persephone had weapons, he’d be hard-pressed to take out more than a handful of the attackers.

But Mansfield and Noemi have to be aboard that ship.

Directive One pulses within Abel, demanding that he do something to protect his creator. Anything. He takes hold of his control panel and braces himself as though for impact: The urge to protect Mansfield is that strong. Something far more powerful urges him to save Noemi, to get her out of there even if it costs his own life.

He hits the controls and sends the mag engines into overdrive.

The Persephone flashes into the battle in mere seconds. Abel kills overdrive right away; the engines buck in protest but his ship remains ready. Unfortunately the Persephone has no weapons, only mining lasers that can do damage when needed. So Abel can offer little more than escape.

Reach the docking bay. Use the damage Remedy has done to get on board. Then find Noemi and free her from custody. Directive One repeats within his mind, but Abel ignores it, or tries to. We’ll notify Remedy of our neutrality as soon as we leave the Osiris. Perhaps there will even be a chance to discuss the mission to help Genesis, to get relay codes from someone on one of these ships—

Laser cannon fire slices so close to the Persephone that every alert goes off at once; every console lights up almost solid red. Another meter closer and his ship would now be wounded almost past repair. Abel decides informing Remedy of his neutrality should be an earlier step in the process.

He slaps comms on for wide-frequency transmission. “To any Remedy vessels within communications range, this is the Persephone, a noncombatant vessel. Please respond.”

No reply. No other ships fire but Abel can’t determine whether that’s due to his message or because they’re focusing their attack on the Osiris with even greater frenzy.

The Remedy ships blast the spacedock surrounding the ship over and over, until the skeletal framework shatters into metal beams that rotate out through space. As Abel watches, unable to intervene, Remedy ships circle the Osiris, darting toward and away like stinging insects, until a few manage to penetrate the landing bays.

Once on board, the Remedy members will no doubt assume control of the vessel. Then Noemi will be at the mercy not only of Burton Mansfield but also of the most dangerous wing of a terrorist organization.

Notify Earth security. Abel usually tries to avoid interacting with the authorities any more than necessary; he doesn’t know who might be under Mansfield’s pay, or even whether someone might finally penetrate his fake identification. He doesn’t care. Not if Earth ships could save the Osiris, and Noemi along with it.

“Free vessel Persephone calling any Earth ships in range,” he says, adjusting his signal to ensure it more swiftly reaches the comm relays between planets. “Suspected Remedy action against a civilian vessel near Proteus. Repeat, suspected Remedy action—”

Four Remedy ships swoop in sharp arcs to zoom straight toward his ship. The problem with open comms is that anyone can hear you, and now Remedy knows he’s endangering their mission. That makes him the enemy.

Abel had calculated this, so he’s prepared. He shifts the Persephone’s course, diving toward Neptune. The last thing he sees before switching his view is the Osiris beginning to move. As still more Remedy ships dart inside, it lumbers from the debris of its frame and begins to fly toward open space.

They can’t get far, Abel reminds himself as he focuses primary instrumentation on Neptune, fast approaching on his viewscreen. From here, even in overdrive mode, no ship can reach either the Genesis or Earth Gate in less than four hours. What he has planned will take far less time.

He wheels around toward the moon Naiad, the innermost of Neptune’s satellites. As he’d anticipated, the Remedy fighters follow him. Naiad is small and irregularly shaped, and its orbit is erratic. Abel brings them around in a curve that is in fact a collision course. Their computers will inform them of that in 3.8 seconds.

Changing course in time to avoid a crash must occur within 3.1 seconds.

In the last moment, Abel banks sharply to stern. He doesn’t shift the viewscreen to show him the scene of the crashes behind him. Watching the smaller, abstract symbols on his console blink out of existence is sufficient.

Killing humans to save his life and his ship is within Abel’s parameters. Given that he was acting to save Noemi from a crisis these pilots helped bring into being, he feels morally justified. Yet the knowledge that he’s taken human life haunts him. He will have to consider this from many religious and philosophical viewpoints—but later, after rescuing Noemi.

The Osiris has already traveled a great distance, and at a higher speed than the Persephone can reach. He’s not that far behind, however, and Abel feels sure that the ship will soon come to a stop. Whether Remedy gains control of the ship or is defeated, the captain will need to cease flight and take stock of the damage.

Yet the Osiris keeps flying, getting farther and farther ahead by the minute. As its path becomes clearer, Abel begins to frown. It appears to be headed to the Kuiper Belt of asteroids and detritus that circles the far end of the solar system.

In other words, it’s headed toward nothing.

Perhaps this is a random course, set by Remedy to escape Earth authorities, if they’ve taken control of the ship. That’s the only rationale Abel can devise. That attempt is doomed to failure—the ship’s ionization trails will be traceable for days yet—but it is possible the Remedy members don’t know that. He magnifies the image of the ship so that it nearly fills the domed screen, giving him the best possible view—

—and the Osiris disappears.

Abel at first assumes a sensor malfunction. He runs through the ship’s systems looking for a fault and finds none, then examines his own internal workings. Everything reports normal.

He pushes the engines faster, and even considers putting them into overdrive again, dangerous as this would be. But within 2.31 minutes, he’s close enough to get better readings on the area. He turns up various far-flung asteroids, one distant gravity anomaly, but absolutely nothing that could be a ship. Even if the Osiris had been destroyed, there would be wreckage, radiation, or other evidence.

Instead the ship has simply vanished from existence—taking Noemi with it.