Hat’s off, Tania, he thought. You play dirty, we have that in common. But no one, no one, plays dirty like me.

Chapter Forty-eight

Black Level, formerly part of Anchor Station

19.FEB.2283

“I expected a shell, like the other,” Tania said. “This … flower … it’s beautiful.”

Despite the incredible sight out the small window, Skyler found himself staring at her. Her eyes were wide with open wonder, and yet they darted from one detail to the next, always analyzing. He had no doubt that the action she’d taken to thwart Russell Blackfield weighed heavily on her, but she’d not spoken of it since. Even if the bold plan worked, the collateral damage would haunt her forever.

A few kilometers away, the new Builder ship spun its elevator cord.

He disagreed with her appraisal but said nothing. Tania was beautiful. This ship, he thought, looked terrifying.

Admittedly it bore some resemblance to a flower. A conical shape of matte black petals pointing down toward Earth. The material looked exactly like the iris he’d encountered deep below Nightcliff. Even from here he could see fine patterns laced into the surface.

The shell ship nestled within, identical to the one over Darwin. Almost identical, he reminded himself. According to Tania, the ship was roughly 20 percent larger. This fact alone had sparked intense speculation from the other scientists aboard Black Level.

Tania spoke of a few smaller ships, hinted at in the telescope images, but there was no sign of them now.

For hours they watched in awe as it slowly cannibalized itself, spinning an elevator cord out of the material in its “petals.” The long oval blades visibly diminished until they could no longer be seen.

Skyler sensed a growing nervousness in the crew. Twenty hours was a lot of time for the ad hoc spacecraft to support six hundred people.

Electrical power was not the issue. A small backup thorium reactor could power the ring-shaped station for thousands of years, if needed. No, the concerned whispers were all about air and water. Recyclers would only go so far, the Platz-built stations having been designed with constant resupply in mind.

They had been under radio silence since detaching Black Level from Anchor Station, waiting to hear something from the former staff of Platz Station. Air and water were dwindling fast. If Platz’s crew failed in their half of the plan, Black Level would have to drift back to the Darwin Elevator, to face whatever punishment awaited.

“It must have acted as a shield,” Tania said.

Skyler soaked in her voice like the scent from some exotic spice. A slight accent, from her Indian parents, sounded at once gentle and authoritative. It made him self-conscious of his own accent, the product of a childhood spent on the streets of Amsterdam.

He knew his questions didn’t help that simpleton image. They must sound stupid to her, but he asked them anyway, just to keep her talking. To keep her from worrying about the fact that no one from Neil’s secret station had made contact yet. “A shield. How so?”

“The distance traveled,” she said, “the speed required. It’s almost impossible to comprehend. Every microscopic piece of interstellar dust would be like a missile.”

Skyler considered the flower petals again with fresh eyes. “They look flawless. Well, they did, before they were converted into the thread.”

“Self-healing.” She shifted in her seat, leaning closer to the window. “We know they can do that. Every time we’ve detected a flaw in the shell ship’s structure, or the Elevator cord, a second look proves it to be repaired.”

He grunted in amazement.

“Imagine if we had that ability,” she said. “All that decay in Darwin, replaced with buildings that healed themselves. That’s what Neil was after, ultimately.”

“It would put me out of a job. No spare parts to fetch.”

She elbowed him, playful. “You’d still have plenty to do.”

A young man floated up behind them, using the back of Skyler’s seat to stop himself. “Dr. Sharma, sorry to interrupt.”

“What is it, Tim?”

The young man had auburn hair and eyes to match. A spate of freckles dotted his pale cheeks and nose, and his narrow chin only served to accentuate a pair of enormous ears. He’d been dutifully manning the station controls since they’d departed. From what Tania had explained to Skyler, Tim’s job before had been to program and manage subtle adjustments in the positions of the farm platforms. No one else aboard Black Level knew how work the controls.

Tim hesitated. “Zane Platz,” he finally said. “He’s alive. And on the comm.”

Tania spun in her seat, the view forgotten. Skyler braced for bad news and turned more slowly.

But Tim had a huge grin on his face. “Get this: He says they’ve got a climber on the way up. Full of supplies.”

A chill ran the length of Skyler’s spine. He closed his eyes and shivered, stress burning away like morning fog.

Tania covered her mouth with both hands, a small laugh of relief still escaping. She looked close to tears.

“They’re on the ground already?” Skyler asked. “With a climber port?”

“No,” Tim said, the grin on his lips growing wider. He looked at Tania. “You know Hab-Eight, the perpetually delayed station the council is always debating? Zane and the rest of the Platz Station staff moved it over here.”

“Neil pulled it off,” Tania said, more to herself than anyone. She shook her head in amazement.

“It’s parked four hundred kilometers above the surface. The climber and supplies were stored there ahead of time. Zane is calling it New Gateway.”

Needs a better name, Skyler thought.

“Come on,” Tim said to Tania. “Zane wants to talk to you.”

“Start the attachment process,” she replied, floating up out of her chair. “We need to be ready to receive that climber.”

She pushed off the wall, floating with the grace of a dancer toward the curved hallway and the makeshift command center beyond.

Skyler remained in his seat, watching her go, unsure what to do. She’d kept him at her side since Black Level’s successful detachment. She had treated him like an equal as they orchestrated the flight from the cord above Darwin to the new shell ship, though Skyler could feel the eyes of her co-workers on him throughout, no doubt wondering about the stranger Tania kept so close. With everything going on, she hadn’t bothered to introduce him.

News of contact from Zane changed the scenario instantly. Neil may have perished, but he’d pulled off his end of the plan, and though Skyler didn’t know anything about Zane, the Platz name visibly boosted the spirits of the crew around him. Tania drifted from the room without even a glance at him. He knew it couldn’t last, that his future would not consist of simply hanging around Dr. Tania Sharma. And yet he’d not dared broach the subject of his role in the new … new what? New nation? Whatever the case, things would change quickly now.

Survival was all anyone should be thinking about. Romantic delusions could wait for another day.

Within minutes the floating ring of Black Level, formerly attached to Anchor Station, altered course and began a slow drift toward the new Builder ship, and the new Elevator.

As news of contact from Zane spread, the mood aboard Black Level Station lifted. Worried whispers turned into animated conversations. Skyler allowed the view to envelop him, to drown the excited talk going on around him.

The Builder ship loomed just a few hundred meters above his window now. Sunlight glinted off the hair-thin cord, allowing him to track the line of it up to the nose of the Builders’ ship. As he watched, the last of the material from the flower petals vanished as some unseen process converted them into cord. Black Level floated much closer now, perhaps fifty meters away.

That he sat here, taking in such a sight, bewildered him. If only he could share it with friends. Samantha would probably have rattled off a dozen lewd remarks about the phallic nature of the alien ship by now. A sudden tug of sadness stole the moment from him. Once again he’d left Sam behind. She was entirely cut off, nowhere safe to retreat to, only Kelly on her side. This time she’d at least made the decision herself, but after what Tania and Skyler had done … Samantha’s situation could only end badly.

A man approached and gestured toward the empty chair beside Skyler. A stranger, one of the Anchor Station scientists who had packed into Black Level with them.

“This is truly amazing,” the man said, enthralled by the view.

Skyler muttered something agreeable. He already missed the silence that Tania had left him with.

“Whoa,” the man said, alarmed. “What is that?”

Skyler focused on where the man pointed, the nose of the Builder ship. An iris opened there, the cord of the elevator at its center. It widened as Skyler watched.

A shape emerged. A dark mass, the size of a fully loaded climber, by Skyler’s estimate, squeezed out of the circular opening.

It began to move down the elevator.

Skyler realized they were still moving in toward the cord, about to attach so Zane’s climber could dock.

“Oh hell,” he said.

Lurching out of his seat, Skyler turned and pushed off the wall with both legs, propelling himself toward the main hallway where Tania had gone. Groups of station staff, crowded into the central hall, looked up at him in surprise.

He shouted. “Tania! Stop us! Stop attaching!”

Rebounding off the sidewall, Skyler lost his momentum and found himself adrift. One of the scientists extended an arm to him and Skyler took the woman’s hand. She pulled him to the wall, where he immediately propelled himself again, this time at a better angle. He shouted again.

The station lurched. Gasps went up from the people crowded into the hall, sounds of panic.

At the door ahead of him, Tania peered out. “We’ve stopped. What’s going on?”

Skyler grabbed her outstretched hand, bracing his leg on the doorjamb. “Something’s coming out of the ship. Coming down the Elevator.”

Her eyes grew wide. Not with concern, Skyler saw, but excitement. “I’ve got to see this!”

“Tania,” he said, “the climber. The supplies. They’ve got to turn it around.”

Apprehension washed over her. She turned back into the room, pushing inside. “Tim,” she started.

“On it,” the man replied. He had strapped himself into a chair in front of a console.

Tania drifted past him to a pair of monitors that had been set up on a bench by the far wall. One displayed the Builder ship. The second monitor showed Earth, far below them. As Skyler closed in on that screen, he could see a speck near the center of the display. The climber.

“Oh no,” Tania said. “Tim, hurry …”

Behind them, Tim frantically called into a headset for the climber to be reversed.

Skyler glanced at the monitor to his left. The dark mass, oblong in shape like some sort of seed, had fully exited the Builder ship.

Another shape began to emerge, identical to the first. Skyler held his breath.

“Please, please,” Tania said under her breath. “Tim!”

The man shouted into the headset.

As Skyler watched, the first mass began to accelerate, quickly moving out of the first monitor’s view. He watched in horror as it came into view on the Earth-side monitor.

The pod accelerated at a phenomenal pace, careening toward Earth. The climber had no chance.

Skyler saw the explosion as a smudge on the monitor. Debris expanded in a cloud of pressurized air and water vapor.

Their chance for survival, destroyed.

Another pod sped down the cord. Then another. They continued for nearly two minutes. Skyler tried to count them, stopping at fifty. No one had said a word since the climber exploded.

As suddenly as it had begun, the stream of Builder pods ended, and a deathly silence gripped the cramped control room.

Skyler finally asked the question. “What now?”

No one replied. He only cared what Tania thought, anyway. She finally met his gaze but said nothing.

Skyler’s mind raced. The climbers weren’t the only problem. “Someone tell Zane they need to clear the entire cord. New Gateway, and … shit, all the farm platforms. Everything needs to move out of the way.”

“The Ag platforms aren’t attached yet,” Tania said, deadpan.

The look on her face matched the Tania he’d seen in Hawaii as they fled the subhumans. Skyler tried to reassure her with a smile. “That’s something, then.”

Tim gave instructions into his headset. At the speed the pods were moving, Skyler wondered if it would help. Then he remembered the distance involved. It had taken him nearly two days to get from Gateway to Anchor. However fast these pods were moving, he thought, it should be at least a few hours before they reached New Gateway.

Tania grasped his hand. “Skyler, what do we do? Should we turn back?”

He heard the fear in her voice. Worse, she was looking to him for answers. Everyone else in that room had pinned their future on her leadership.

“Don’t give up yet,” he said to her.

“We see them now,” Zane Platz said.

Tim, with the help of a few Anchor scientists, had rigged the headset into one of the terminal’s speakers.

By now a number of senior Anchor staff had crowded into the small control room. The cramped space gave Skyler a feeling of claustrophobia, but he kept it to himself.

“I counted at least fifty,” Skyler said. A few of the scientists in the room gasped at that. He heard someone wonder aloud, not for the first time, what purpose the pods had. Quiet side discussions started among the researchers.

“Yes,” Zane said through the speaker. “They’re passing us. Speedy little buggers, aren’t they?”