A Deepness in the Sky

Belga Underville had rarely seen joy or fear so strong, and never attached to the same events by the same people. Coldhaven's techs should have been cheering as wave after wave of their long-range interceptors scored against the Kindred ballistics, and hundreds of other enemy missiles blew themselves up or otherwise aborted. The success rate was already nearing ninety-nine percent. Which left thirty live nuclear warheads arcing into Accord territory. It was the difference between annihilation and mere isolated disaster...and the technicians chewed on their eating hands as they struggled to stop those last, straggling threats.

Coldhaven walked down his row of techs. One of Lighthill's people, an oophase corporal, was by his side. The General was hanging on Rhapsa Lighthill's every word, making sure his techs got the benefit of all the new intelligence that was flooding across their displays. Belga hung back. There was nothing she could do but get in the way. Victory Lighthill was deep in some weird conversation with the aliens, every few sentences punctuated by long delays, time for side conversations with her brother and Coldhaven's people. She paused, waiting, and gave Belga a shy smile.

Belga gave her a little wave back. The cobblie wasn't quite the same as her mother—except, perhaps, where it mattered.

Then Lighthill's phone came alive again—some relatively near collaborator? "Yes, good. We'll get people out there. Five hours maybe....Daddy, we're back on track. Critter Number Five is playing fair. You were right about that one. Daddy?...Brent, we've lost him again! That shouldn't happen now....Daddy?"

Rachner's helicopter had stopped its zigzag, evasive course, though not before Thract became thoroughly lost. Now the heli flew low and fast across the altiplano, as if fearless of hostile observation from above. A passenger on his own pilot's perch, Thract watched the sky show with an almost hypnotized wonder, only partly aware of Sherkaner Underhill's delirious mumbling, and the strange lights coming from his game helmet.

The sheets of amissile launches were long gone, but all across the horizon the evidence of their mission was lighting the sky.At least we foughtback.

The timbre of the rotor noise changed, bringing Thract back from his terrible, far vision. The heli was sliding down through the dark. Shading his eyes against the sky lights, Thract could see that they were headed for a landing on a random stretch of naked stone, hills and ice all around.

They touched down, roughly, and the turbines idled till the rotors were spinning slow enough to see. It was almost quiet in the cabin. The guide-bug stirred, pushed insistently at the door beside Underhill.

"Don't let him out, sir. If we lose him here, he might stay lost."

Underhill's head bobbed uncertainly. He set down the game helmet; its lights flickered and died. He patted his guide-bug, and pulled shut the closures of his jacket. "It's okay, Colonel. It's all over now. You see, we won."

The cobber sounded as delirious as ever. But Thract was beginning to realize: delirious or not, Underhill had saved the world. "What happened, sir?" He said softly. "Alien monsters controlled our nets...and you controlled the monsters?"

The old, familiar chuckle. "Something like that. The problem was, they aren't all monsters. Some of them are both clever and good...and we almost squashed each other with our separate plans. That was terribly expensive to fix." He was silent for a second, his head wavering. "It will be okay, but...just now I can't see much." The cobber had taken a full head of the aliens' killer beam. The blisters on Underhill's eyes were spreading, a pervasive, creamy haze. "Maybe you can take a moment and tell me what you see." The cobber jerked a hand skyward.

Rachner pushed his best side close to the south-facing window. The shoulder of the mountain cut off part of the view, but there were still one hundred degrees of horizon. "Hundreds of nukes, sir, glowing lights in the sky. I think those are our interceptors, way far off."

"Ha. Poor Nizhnimor and Hrunk...when we walked in the Dark, we saw something similar. Though it was much colder then." The guide-bug had the trick of the door. It popped it open a crack, and a slow draft of coldest air licked into the cabin.

"Sir—" Rachner started to complain about the draft.

"It's okay. You won't be here long. What else do you see?"