Equinox Page 10

  By the time she got back up to the bridge, the Resurrection had already evacuated its ballast tanks and risen up out of the water. Ayla could see from the synthesized video feed that the ship was perfectly intact, and she could tell from the thermal images that the entire boarding party was already down. The false-colored imagery was turning the eight shapes bluish and over a dozen new heat signatures were approaching from the stern having probably just emerged from a chamber designed to collect and store thermal radiation and to dampen acoustics. Ayla didn’t know what else to do but try to raise her crew—warn them of what was coming; beg Costa to reply; plead for some kind of response from someone—but the only reply was unending dead air.

  And then she heard the EEA—the electromagnetic emissions alarm—informing her that now she was the one being scanned. She thought about the weapons that they had just recovered and suddenly understood why there was no ammunition. There were other weapons aboard the Hawk, but she had no training, and would obviously be outmanned and outgunned. However, it wasn’t the idea of dying that really scared her; rather, it was the thought of living. Depending on the resolution of their scans, they probably already knew that she was a woman, which meant they would almost certainly try to take her alive. And Ayla had seen and heard enough over the last four years to know now what men were capable of.

  She realized she probably only had a few minutes to get the Hawk turned and up to top speed before she would not be able to outrun any kind of fast-attack crafts they might be able to launch, but she could not bring herself to leave her husband and her crew. She watched the blue dots grow colder still while the EEA continued to blare. That was the first time Costa spoke to her from inside her own head.

  Ayla. You need to leave.

  I can’t.

  You have to. Right now. I’m ordering you.

  I can’t leave you. I can’t survive without you.

  You can survive without me. You will. I promise. You have to go. Right now.

  I need you.

  You don’t. You’re strong.

  I should have been there for you.

  There was nothing you could have done. If you were here, you’d just be dead, too.

  I’d rather be dead then be without you.

  But then you wouldn’t be able to do what I need you to do.

  What?

  Get revenge.

  Ayla could see that the Resurrection was coming about. She touched the command screen to silence the alarm, selected all the drones at once, and recalled them with a single gesture. On the next screen, she started all the Hawk’s engines simultaneously, but before moving the slider all the way up to full ahead, she made sure the drones’ images of the Resurrection were archived, and that her coordinates were recorded.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ROCK DRILL

  THERE WAS NO ROOM IN Luka’s transpartment to store his sculptures, so the work he decided he did not entirely hate, he brought up to the roof. Although Millennium and Paramount Towers were identical in architecture, presumably for the sake of a more interesting and diverse skyline, the two buildings’ roofs were finished differently. The top of Paramount Tower on the other side of the Embarcadero looked impossibly verdant as it was covered with rolls of synthetic sod—a sort of oxymoronic facsimile of a living roof—but the roof of Luka’s building was surfaced with alternating arrangements of some kind of raised compost decking. He never asked for permission to convert the rooftop terrace of his transpartment building into his own personal sculpture garden, but nobody ever told him that he couldn’t. Like so many other things aboard the San Francisco, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that yielded at least a temporary state of equilibrium.

  He called the piece he just installed Rock Drill. It was a tall, slender figure—not quite human, but not entirely mechanical—mounted on an old, manual, tripodal drilling tool. At the end of its long neck, its visored head gazed with eerie indifference at something far off in the distance—something that could just as easily be sublimely majestic as gut-wrenchingly horrific—while its long alien fingers grasped and mindlessly operated the drill’s crank. The creature’s ribs formed a cavity inside of which was nestled the impression of some sort of perverse progeny: a limbless fetus who would find no contradiction in a world as technologically inspiring as it was primally barbaric. The piece was mesmerizing and imposing and grotesque, and it was not so much the dramatic presence of the creature that was frightening as it was the suggestion of a world that could tolerate its existence.

  Luka sat on the edge of the rail facing outward, his back turned on the new installation, his feet dangling. There was a configuration of stars—presumably consistent with the San Francisco’s current latitude and longitude—projected on the deep sapphire-blue canopy overhead, and the glass globe enclosing the Yerba Buena Gardens reverberated with the singing of the broods of insects inside. As he frequently did after installing a new piece, Luka wondered if it might be his last, and contemplated exactly what would happen if he were to scoot himself forward, one centimeter at a time, until his entire body was fully off the rail, suspended above the short drop to the slopping facade below, his arms quivering under the strain, pinpricks of perspiration forming on his scalp and back. And then he imagined the sudden rush of air past his ears after letting go.

  The silica and microlattice facade of both Millennium Tower and her sister tower, Paramount, was pitched at enough of an angle that he would slide down it all the way to the soft silicone sidewalk below, but steep enough that there was no way he could generate enough friction to stop himself. In fact, he would continue to accumulate momentum the entire way down. The fall itself probably wouldn’t kill him, but he would likely die soon thereafter of his injuries since the channels that held the silica panes in place were sharp enough that the effect would not be unlike that of sliding down a monumental, forty-two-story cheese grater. By the time he got to the bottom, Luka guessed that roughly 20 percent of his body mass would probably be gone. Or not so much gone as simply no longer attached to or inside of him. He would land with one side of himself filed down like an acorn rubbed flat against a sidewalk, then lie heaped at the base of what would appear to everyone aboard the San Francisco to be a somehow morbidly triumphant giant red paint stroke flung up the entire side of the building.

  That, Luka realized, would be his final installment.

  There was no telling how long it would remain there—drying, absorbing, curing—as the City Council debated and argued over the best way to remove it. Eventually, the crane behind City Hall would come crawling down Pacifica, turn on Sunset, and park itself in front of Millennium Tower for the week or so that it would take for a specially selected maintenance crew to scrub blood off the windows and pick the dried flesh, bone, and hair out of the panel frames. But it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to get it all, and a few unlucky residents would probably have their views forever spoiled by pink smudges or darkened brain tissue or shards of cartilage. Because there was no weather beneath the massive composite-weave dome, such macabre blights would probably remain there for as long as the San Francisco managed to remain afloat.

  This, in retrospect, was almost certainly why Val had chosen the refuse chamber beneath City Hall. Nice and clean. She left no note, and of course there was no body, so had it not been for surveillance footage, it was very possible that her disappearance would still be a matter of rumor, speculation, and eventually legend. The investigating authorities tried to convince Luka that it had been an accident; that better safety measures should have been in place; that the fear and panic with which she’d tried to escape from the waterlock after it was sealed and started flooding—and her pleas and whimpering as she stole her final breaths from the diminishing air gap just below the ceiling—were proof that it was simply a tragic industrial accident. But Luka had seen the footage himself—all of it—and there was nothing accidental about how she opened the waterlock, set a timer, then calmly stepped inside and sat down serenely and medi
tatively at the edge of the drain to wait. Yes, she eventually beat and scratched her hands and fingernails bloody against the sealed doors, and screamed and pleaded for someone to help her, but that was only because she’d changed her mind after it was too late. That was nothing more than the seemingly paradoxical reaction of a more primitive region of her brain to what a more modern and sophisticated region had successfully and irrevocably premeditated. Luka knew for a fact that his wife very intentionally committed suicide, and he also knew exactly why.

  There were two memories of Valencia that Luka knew he would never forget. The first was her trying to contain her excitement when she sat him down on a plastic bench in the Embarcadero beside a cricket match and confirmed what he had already figured out: that she was pregnant. The second was when she informed him, flatly, that the baby was gone. This Luka had also already figured out, but what he did not understand was her reaction. He was looking for disappointment and devastation in her expression—tears in her big Spanish eyes, quivering in her full seashell-pink lips, defeat in her normally tall and confident posture—but what he found instead was fear, and to an extent he hadn’t realized was possible until that day, pure and profound regret.

  The baby had not been lost, Luka realized. Valencia had given it up.

  The Coronians traded for whatever they could not assemble themselves, which primarily came down to two things: raw medium to run their assemblers, and unique genetic material with which to assemble themselves. It was believed that the entire Coronian population was intentionally sterile and did not propagate so much as expand through deliberate genetic experimentation. Some even said that they had cured the disease of aging and simply lived as long as they were considered productive or useful before finally being judged obsolete and euthanized by a more modern and advanced generation. However it was that they passed in and out of existence, they seemed to have retained an ironic and almost romantic appreciation for human genetic variety, probably due to the relatively limited gene pool from which they originated. A healthy human fetus could be placed into stasis during transport, and remain so for as long as it took to fully acclimate to zero-g, and then it could either be modified before its development was allowed to resume, or simply harvested for whatever genetic value it contained before being discarded. In return, the mother back on Earth received as compensation an even gigawatt of power—easily enough for two full lifetimes aboard a rig like the San Francisco.

  Although the rooftop access door floated inside electromagnetic tracks and therefore slid open with neither friction nor sound, it was in desperate need of recalibration—probably from being whacked repeatedly by Luka’s sculptures—and as a result, it bounced against its rubber backstop. Luka shifted on the edge of the rail, pressing the backs of his dangling legs securely against the low wall beneath him. He listened to Charlie’s boots against the hollow decking until they halted in what he judged to be rough proximity to his newest work.

  “Oh my God,” he heard her say. “This is . . .” She was quiet for a moment, presumably trying to make sense of what she was looking at. “This is bizarre.”

  Luka did not respond. He looked off over the gardens as though he were still alone. As obsessed as he was with his sculptures, for some reason he found that they were also usually his least favorite topic of conversation.

  “And amazing,” she added.

  Under the best of circumstances, Luka did not take compliments all that well. And in this particular circumstance, he wasn’t sure whether he was being complimented or placated. The only appropriate response seemed like none at all.

  “Are you happy with it?”

  “I don’t know,” Luka said. “I guess.”

  “Where did you get the drill?”

  “Found it in the waterlock.”

  “What were you doing in the waterlock?”

  “I’m a forklift operator,” Luka said. “Sometimes I go into the waterlock.”

  “Right,” Charlie said. “Sorry.” She reached out and touched Luka’s arm. “And I’m sorry I said it was bizarre. It’s brilliant. I honestly think this is one of the best things you’ve ever done. It just surprised me, that’s all. Which is a good thing, right? How interesting would it be if it didn’t surprise me?”

  Luka spun around on the rail and looked again at his sculpture. “It is bizarre,” he said.

  Charlie turned and hopped up on the wall beside him. She was coming from home rather than work, and although she’d showered, her nails were still dirty. In fact, about the only time Charlie’s nails weren’t dirty was when she was coming off saturation rotation: weeks spent inside compression and decompression chambers where there wasn’t much to do but eat, sleep, and watch videos. Otherwise, Charlie’s fingernails were perpetually stained with a variety of substances usually collectively referred to as grime—both beneath the quick and around the cuticles—contrasting sharply with her delicate pallor and white-blonde hair. It was one of Charlie’s many idiosyncrasies that Luka loved. Or maybe what he actually loved was the fact that she never seemed to care.

  She turned her head and looked at him—peered carefully into his eyes. Luka knew what she was looking for, and that she’d found it. The change in her expression was subtle: a combination of disappointment and sympathy.

  Luka watched her for a moment, then began leaning toward her—moving his face close to hers. Charlie did not move her head, but her hand came up between them and landed gently on his chest.

  “What?” Luka said.

  Charlie shook her head. “Not like this.”

  “Not like what?”

  “Luka, I’m not her.”

  Luka leaned away and narrowed his eyes. “I know you’re not her,” he said with distinct acrimony. “I’m very aware of the fact that she’s dead and you aren’t.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Then just say what you do mean, Charlie. I’m so sick of this. I don’t know what’s going on between us.”

  “I mean that it’s too soon.”

  “It’s been over a year.”

  “Since she died,” Charlie said. “But not since you’ve accepted that she’s gone.”

  Luka looked away from her and shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it. For once, I’d like something to not be about her.”

  “That’s exactly my point,” Charlie said. “I’d like that, too. But everything is still about her, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sitting next to you,” Luka told her. “She’s gone. You’re here.”

  Charlie let a moment of silence pass between them. “Luka,” she began, “you know how I feel about you, but I don’t think either of us really knows how you feel about me. I don’t want to just be another substance to take your pain away.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  Charlie nodded. She looked up at Luka’s new sculpture, then looked around at his other installations: two amorphous figures with tendrils writhing between them, either drawing them together or keeping them apart; a man staring blankly at the sky while wrenching his chest open and revealing it to be eerily empty inside; an androgynous figure melting into a puddle, grasping in futility for unseen salvation; a tiny forgotten child—hands politely folded, head submissively bowed—sitting quietly and alone on a shelf hung on one of the walls enclosing the access lift.

  “I didn’t come here to argue with you,” Charlie said.

  “Then what did you come for?”

  “To talk about the RMD.”

  “I didn’t read the fucking manifest,” Luka said. “Christ. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Not about that,” Charlie said.

  “Then what?”

  “I think it might be proof.”

  “Proof of what?”

  “Of what you’ve always said about the Coronians.”

  “I’ve said a lot of things about the Coronians. What specifically?”

  “That they’re just using us,”
Charlie said. “And that when they’re done with us, they’re just going to discard us and leave us all to die.”

  Luka smiled. “How does a piece of mining equipment prove all that?”

  “Do you still think it’s going into orbit?”

  “The only reason I know to package something up into that many crates is so you easily distribute the weight, and the best reason to be able to distribute the weight that precisely is if it’s part of an orbital payload.”

  “Right,” Charlie said. “So what would the Coronians do with mining equipment in orbit?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, think about it a second. What’s the simplest possible answer?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they’re going to trade it. Or maybe they just want to see how it works. For all we know, it’s not going into orbit at all. Maybe the brokers just need to transport it on a bunch of small cargo vessels for some reason. We really have no idea.”

  “You’re just making excuses.”

  “Excuses for what?” Luka asked her. “I’m not even sure what we’re talking about.”

  “We’re talking about not seeing something that’s staring you right in the face. Listen to you. You’re inventing all these ridiculous scenarios just to avoid the obvious.”

  “What did I say that’s ridiculous?”

  “Do you really think the Coronians need us to show them how a mining drill works? Or that the brokers are going to sell it to someone who owns a fleet of cute little rowboats?”