Judas Unchained

Alic came stumbling out on all fours. Morton helped him off with the legs and shoulders. They hugged for a long moment, slapping at each other’s backs like brothers who had been torn apart for a century.

“We fucking did it,” Morton said. “We’re invincible.”

Alic drew back, and finally took a long look around. His expression became troubled. “Where the hell are we?”

Morton finally paid attention to their surroundings. His first thought was that they’d tunneled away for kilometers to emerge in a different place altogether, possibly a different world. They were standing in a desert; it didn’t have sand and sun-blasted stones, but the expanse of raw soil and dark stone fragments that lay all around didn’t have a single blade of grass or tree growing anywhere. Nor was there any evidence that life had ever visited this place.

He looked up at the mountains that barricaded the western horizon, and called up a map file, integrating it with his insert’s inertial navigation function. The peaks corresponded to the eastern edge of the Dessault Mountains just outside the Institute valley. They were in the right places, but they weren’t the right shape at all. Every crag and cleft had been abraded away, reducing them to tall conical mounds of stone. They weren’t as high as they used to be, either. The snow had vanished completely.

“That really was one hell of a storm,” Morton muttered. “I never took Bradley seriously before.” He looked to the east, convinced there should be some sign of it. The horizon was a perfectly flat line between the newborn reddish brown desert and Far Away’s glorious sapphire sky. “Probably gonna go all the way around the world and bite us again.”

Alic was looking at the gentle saddle that used to hold the Institute. “No sign of the Marie Celeste. I guess the planet had its revenge.”

“Yeah.” Morton started scratching the back of his arms. Just about every part of him was itching now. The sweatshirt and thin cotton pants he wore didn’t exactly smell too good, either. “What now?”

“We survived. There’s got to be someone else around here.”

Wilson watched the tail end of the storm flow away into the east. The mountains around the High Desert were hard to see now; they’d become the same color as the land. It was a beautiful view, the air the storm had left in its wake was perfectly clear, there were no clouds anywhere. A doldrum calm had enveloped the whole Dessault range. If he had a regret it was the way the storm had stripped the snow off the eastern mountains. Real mountains deserved snowcaps to complete their majesty.

“It’s over, Admiral,” Samantha said.

“Are you sure? That seems a very bold statement.”

“You didn’t see the starship launch, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” He smiled at her conviction. “And you’re quite right. I would have seen the fusion drives if they had fired. Your planet had its revenge.”

“Thank you, Admiral, you made it possible.”

“I just hope that storm dies out soon.”

“We think it will break up in the Oak Sea; there’ll be ordinary hurricanes split off from it, but the main body will power down before long.”

“Nice theory. Did the Martian data help you come up with the figures?”

“Yes.”

“That’s very comforting for an old NASA man like me to hear. Thank you, Samantha. My congratulations to you and your colleagues.”

“Admiral, our original observation team should be with you in ten to fifteen hours. They’ll escort you down. If you could make your way to the southern end of Aphrodite’s Seat they’ll rendezvous with you there.”

“That’s very kind of you, Samantha, but I’m just going to stay here. I imagine it will be quite a spectacular sunset.”

“Admiral, uh, I don’t want to…Are you all right?”

He looked down at his legs. The blood had finally stopped seeping around the epoxy foam. They didn’t trouble him anymore; he could barely feel them now. Every now and then a big shiver would run along his torso. The lava he was resting on had become quite cold. “I’m fine. Tell your team to turn back. They’d just be wasting their time. I’m afraid I’m not quite the pilot I used to be.”

“Admiral?”

“You have a lovely and strange world here, Samantha. Now the Starflyer’s gone, make the most of it.”

“Admiral!”

Wilson closed the link. She meant well, but she’d want to keep talking. He didn’t need companionship now. It was quite a revelation after so long, but he didn’t fear death anymore, not with Oscar and Anna showing him the way.

They’d find his body, and extract his memorycell, and re-life him. He was sure of that. But it wouldn’t be him who lived on in the future. He’d never accepted that form of continuation in the way the Commonwealth-born generations did. That old twenty-first-century way of thinking was one very tough habit to quit.