AELIN
Out at the ekti-harvesting complex, Aelin watched the bloater exploitation in silence and in pain. He caused no trouble, did not try to interfere. Eventually, Iswander’s workers learned to ignore the green priest, whom they considered eccentric though innocuous, and not worth paying attention to. After hard shifts draining the nodules, pumping ekti-X, filling fuel canisters, and preparing the next large shipment array, the well-paid crew just wanted to relax.
But as the bloaters were drained and their dead husks discarded, Aelin could feel the blood of the cosmos being spilled. Inside his mind and rippling through his soul, he sensed a vague confusion and dismay as one nodule after another died. The echoes of inarticulate calls for help were driving him truly mad. If the green priest couldn’t stop it, then at least he had to get away from this space charnel house. Far away.
Alec Pannebaker, Lee Iswander’s deputy manager, oversaw the operations while the industrialist was away taking his son to Newstation. Pannebaker was a well-liked man who tried to get to know all workers personally. He socialized with the ekti extractors and admin staff; he even tried to strike up conversations with Aelin, and the green priest did his best to respond adequately. But with so much resonant cacophony in his head, the green priest could no longer have a casual conversation with anyone. He was too preoccupied with the thrumming stew of incomprehensible thoughts that emanated from something beyond the bloaters, something that no one else could hear.
Elisa Enturi, Iswander’s second-in-command, was a much harder boss than Pannebaker, self-absorbed and impatient with anyone who failed to perform exactly up to her expectations. Aelin knew to tread carefully around her. Despite Lee Iswander’s orders, she would be looking for any excuse to come down hard on him.
He was desperate to go where he could find another treeling and get in touch with the worldforest mind again, but the Iswander Industries extraction field was a secure operation. Ships did not come and go, except for clearly scheduled and specialized vehicles, and those were piloted only by the most trusted members of the company.
Right now, Elisa Enturi was preparing the next shipment array for delivery to Ulio Station … and Aelin realized that was his only way out. He would never get past Elisa’s scrutiny, though. The real key was Pannebaker.
The deputy was a daredevil who had an appetite for adrenaline-filled sports. Pannebaker had risked himself many times just for fun in the Sheol lava-mining operations, and out in space he was fond of a sport called “gap jumping.” Wearing an environment suit with a limited supply of air and only a few maneuvering jets, he would plot a trajectory, accounting for time and life-support resources, then jump out into open space. He flew free from one point to another and hoped he didn’t miscalculate.
Out in the extraction field, Pannebaker could easily take an inspection pod, but sometimes he suited up, grabbed an extra air tank, and just leaped headfirst out of a docking bay. He flew through the vacuum over to the pumping stations, cargo ships, or disposal tugs that removed the withered empty sacks. He thought it was fun.
Though Aelin told no one of his particular interest, he kept an eye on Pannebaker. The eccentric green priest watched unobtrusively as Pannebaker suited up and strapped himself to a carrying framework like a space wheelbarrow, then jumped out.
Aelin had previously learned about environment suits, life-support systems, and stardrive travel times, all of which had been part of the curriculum when he tutored Lee Iswander’s son. But Arden had gone with his father to Newstation and Academ.
It was the best time for the green priest to make his move.
He watched Pannebaker kick off from an anchored pumping station and come back to the admin hub. The deputy used the last of his compressed-air jets to maneuver himself to the external airlock and cycled himself through.
Aelin was there, blending into the background as other workers hurried forward to help Pannebaker remove his helmet before his last air ran out. The deputy had a salt-and-pepper goatee and long steel-colored hair. Right now, although heaving deep breaths after nearly emptying his air tank, he wore a large grin. “I cut that one close, but I made it.” Aelin suspected that the deputy was more frightened than he let on.
One of the techs looked at the spacesuit, tapped a readout, and clucked his tongue. “Red lines everywhere, Alec. Five minutes more, and we’d be giving you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“Not me,” said a burly female tech. “If he’s damn fool enough to do stupid stunts, I’m not kissing him back to life.”
Still catching his breath, Pannebaker chuckled again. “If I woke up to that, I might just think I was in heaven, Sherry.” That earned him a round of whistles and catcalls. Pannebaker waved to the green priest as he let the techs strip him out of his suit. “I think I’ll rest for a bit back in my quarters. Long shift. See that my suit’s refilled and recharged, would you?”
Sherry huffed. “What am I, your personal maid?”
“No, you’re my technician, and it’s part of your job.”
“As a low-priority item,” she snorted.
Aelin volunteered. “I’ll do it for you. I’ve been trained … and I’d like to do something around here.”
Pannebaker shrugged. “The chief keeps you around for some reason—but I’ll double-check your work next time I go out.”
“You’re welcome to.”
Pannebaker left the bulky equipment on the deck for cleanup and recharge, and Aelin bent over the components, much to the amusement of the technicians. They left the bay, chatting with one another as they went back to their process lines.
Now that he was alone, the green priest focused on his work, making sure that he made no errors, because his own life would depend on it. Alone in the bay, Aelin refilled the air tanks, installed fully charged power packs, then gathered spare air tanks connected in sequence, along with a triple array of fresh batteries. According to his calculations, that should be enough. He filled the transport barrow with the spare equipment and locked the suit in its storage cabinet, ready to go. His pulse was racing.
Like a drill sergeant, Elisa Enturi used the intership comms to guide workers who moved hundreds of ekti canisters into a large array framework for the next major shipment to Ulio Station. Aelin had already studied the manifests and schedules; Elisa wasn’t due to depart for ten hours, but she was often impatient to leave early.
Aware of his window of opportunity, the green priest waited for the shift change. Two long hours.
Pannebaker had gone into his quarters, apparently to sleep. In the usual commotion of a shift change, workers came in from their external assignments, ships docked inside the hub launching bay, inspection pods departed for the extraction fields. So much activity at the end of the shift gave him plenty of camouflage.
Checking, he learned that Elisa was in a last-minute meeting with several team leaders to review their jobs. Once she departed with the tank array for Ulio, Pannebaker would be in charge of the industrial site, and everyone could heave a sigh of relief.
With Elisa busy in the briefing, Aelin knew it was his time to move.
Pannebaker’s gap-jumping suit was ready to go. Remembering what he had learned from the worldforest mind, the green priest donned the suit, adjusted the fittings, installed the helmet. As a precaution, he tuned his comm between channels so that he heard mostly static through the speakers, should anyone try to contact him; if he was forced to respond, his words would be distorted and garbled too. It would seem like a simple enough mistake if anyone bothered to ping him.
He checked his suit jets, noted the cumulative oxygen level on this tank and the chain of spare tanks. He carried extra life-support batteries inside the transport barrow. Everything was ready. He cycled through the small airlock.
Drifting out in space, Aelin pushed himself away from the admin hub toward the mostly loaded tank array. Engineers were putting on the finishing touches, testing numerous cylinders, drifting around the framework in inspection pods. In his suit, the green priest maneuvered so that the array eclipsed him from curious eyes. The scout pods couldn’t see his small form, and if they did notice a suited figure flying free, they would assume it was Deputy Pannebaker.
Aelin did nothing to call attention to himself. He floated along with infinity above and below. The destination ahead was the anchor of his focus.
The ekti canisters inside the large array were like a forest with narrow gaps between cylinders, places where one could easily hide. He managed to catch himself on an outer array strut; then he removed the spare oxygen tanks and battery packs from the barrow. He pushed the empty vehicle away, adding a burst of acceleration from its own thrusters so the barrow tumbled into the emptiness toward the husks of drained bloaters.
Aelin wished he could do more to save some of the mysterious nodules, but he just had to stow away, sit quietly, and wait. Holding the extra air tanks and batteries, he worked his way in among the ekti cylinders, climbing deep into the structure. He knew no one would see him.
Elisa would depart soon, and he was set now, ensconced now. He attached his air tanks, connected the extra power blocks in a chain, studied the readouts. Under normal usage, the energy and air remaining would last about sixteen hours. Nowhere near enough. He guessed that it would take at least two days to reach Ulio Station … therefore he would have to survive that long. For a normal person it would not be possible, but Aelin would make it possible.
He controlled his breathing, calmed himself, slowed his body’s processes. It was a long preparation, but he knew how to do it, a metabolic trick he had learned when he was drowning in revelations from the bloaters.
And as he did so, he heard whispers in his mind, bright chimes, the musical background noise that had risen to such a crescendo when he was inside one of the bloaters. He was separate from the cluster of drifting nodules, but here, so close to all the extracted ekti-X and surrounded by the concentrated essence of the bloaters, he could hear part of the song left in the blood, in the ekti. It was perfect, surrounding him with a cosmic lullaby. He found it soothing and astonishing at the same time. It would make the passage so much stronger.
Delving deep inside himself, tapping into his biochemistry, his metabolism, his respiration, his heartbeat, the green priest slowed his entire being. Secure in the array, after adjusting the suit temperature, energy drain, and oxygen flow well below survival minimums, he dropped himself into a deep coma.
No one could detect him here. No one would even look for him.
Aelin would not awaken until he reached Ulio Station. Until he was free.