Defy the Worlds (Defy the Stars #2)(32)
Brilliant green light flares through the window, blinding everyone in the room, and the entire ship rocks so violently that most of the passengers fall to the floor. Noemi manages to stay on her feet, barely. Staggering to the window, she peers into the darkness beyond. Only her military training allows her to pick out the faint glints of metal and slashes of movement that hint at what’s going on outside—a pitched battle between the Osiris’s mechs and a swarm of unknown fighter craft.
The ship shudders again—another blast must’ve landed somewhere else—and then the soft gold illumination in the room switches to blinking red alarm lights. Over the speaker, someone shouts, “All hands to emergency stations! We’re under attack!”
A few people begin screaming. Noemi turns back to the window, realizing that the fight outside involves at least hundreds of combatants—maybe more than a thousand. Whoever came after this ship came in force.
Delphine holds one hand to her chest, as if that’s all that’s keeping her racing heart inside. “Attack? Who would be attacking us?”
It’s Gillian Shearer who answers, her oval face gone an even starker white. “Remedy.”
12
THE JOURNEY TO NEPTUNE COULD BE COMPLETED MUCH more quickly if Abel put the Persephone’s mag engines into overdrive mode. However, that would tax them to the limit, holding him to slower speeds for some days to come. Abel projects that he’ll probably require the ship’s highest level of velocity to escape with Noemi after freeing her.
This means he won’t reach Neptune for hours. He has no solid data nor even any theories as to what he will find there. Therefore he can’t construct any meaningful plans, much less calculate their relative probabilities of success. Abel will spend the hours of the journey with little to do besides worry about Noemi.
He’d always understood himself to have greater capacities for patience and calm than humans. This self-assessment will have to be reconsidered.
As the Persephone clears Saturn’s orbit, he stands in his cabin, which used to be Mansfield’s, and attempts to fix his full focus on the wall. He doesn’t dislike the once-famous painting already hanging there, one of Monet’s Water Lilies. But impressionist techniques aren’t as effective on mechs. Humans look at the swirls of paint and see the translucency of water. Abel sees swirls of paint. Understanding the illusion is not the same as experiencing it.
The Kahlo is propped in one corner. He’d thought to hang that one instead, so the room would reflect his preferences instead of his creator’s, but it’s so small—and it’s not the kind of painting to be peacefully stared at while falling asleep. It demands attention and analysis. It disquiets.
Right now, when Abel feels as though his every circuit is overloading with the need to reach Noemi, he doesn’t need any more disquiet. The water lilies can stay where they are.
What could pull Mansfield so far from home when his condition is so frail—and when he believed Abel to be within hours of his possession? A move so dangerous suggests other involved parties with power even greater than Burton Mansfield’s, and urgent priorities still unguessed. Still, whatever cards Mansfield has left to play will be played in pursuit of one primary goal: immortality. Noemi’s kidnapping proves that Abel is still Mansfield’s only sure route to avoiding death—
Your thoughts are becoming highly repetitive, Abel reminds himself. This is counterproductive. Find other points of focus.
He takes another step back, trying yet again to see the Monet as a human would. He ought to have asked Noemi about it. Maybe that night after he nearly froze doing work on the outer hull, and she lay in here beside him as he thawed—he could’ve asked her then—
A chime sounds, indicating an incoming communications transmission, a response to his earlier signal. Abel instantly dashes to the nearest console because he finally has something useful to do.
The screen lights up to reveal Harriet and Zayan, crowded together into what looks like a public, open-air comm booth. In the distance behind them he sees green hills shrouded in clouds, serene and beautiful; they appear to be visiting some of the last surviving tea gardens on Earth.
“You’re all right!” Harriet says, a huge grin on her face. “Noemi’s safe and we’re getting back to work.”
Zayan laughs. “That wasn’t much of a vacation! Still, if Noemi’s okay, that’s all that matters.”
“Noemi is not yet safe, but your vacation has ended—if you choose to take on this work, which I hope you will.” Abel cannot require them to do this, only ask.
“What’s going on?” Harriet asks. “How do we help Noemi?”
“I don’t need your help to rescue Noemi,” he replies. “I need you to assist a friend of mine who is a member of Remedy.”
Both Harriet and Zayan sit back, with near identical expressions of shock. It’s Zayan who finds his voice first. “You swore to us you were never in Remedy.”
“Nor have I been. But I have contacts within the group, and one of those contacts needs help.”
Harriet’s shaking her head so vehemently that her braids shake. “No. No way. Abel, we love working with you, but signing up with terrorists? Never.”
“Ephraim Dunaway is a member of the moderate wing of Remedy,” Abel says. He uses Ephraim’s name deliberately. Harriet and Zayan will see it as a show of trust, which it is. Even if they won’t help, they won’t turn Ephraim in. Abel needs them to understand that he knows this. “He’s one of the people who’re working to get control from the more violent wing. More to the point, he’s a doctor, and he’s trying to save Genesis.”