Page 54 of Alliance
If I climbed up there, I’d be able to hear the voice calling me.
“Roz?”
I walked right up to the cliff face and clutched an icy handhold with red fingers, my eyes on the prize.Up.
[Warning] “Roz, come on. We need t– What are you doing?”
“It’s up there.” I pulled myself up another few feet.
I could sacrifice my fingers, right?
If I used my mechanical strength rather than the tension limitations in my coding that protected my flesh from too much force, I’d be able to climb much faster and more reliably without slipping.
“What’s up there?”
Snowflakes flew into my eyes, but the sting was minimal. I needed to keep that echo close until I clutched it in my LMem. I turned off my blinking timer and force regulator so I could climb more quickly without losing sight of the prize.
[Warning] A firm hand pulled me back down and spun me away. I resisted at first, but then Fásach’s bright blue eyes were engulfing mine, and I blinked instinctively, reengaging the failsafes I’d shut down. His brow was creased with concern, and he rubbed my hands, stuffing them inside the gloves attached to the cuffs of my coveralls.
“Roz, you okay? There’s nothing up there.”
“I—” I paused, staring down at his hands as he buttoned me up. My upper lip tickled, and I brushed at it, a smear of black oil staining my sleeve. The echo faded away, and I shook off the foreboding sensation. Fás lifted my sleeve to his nose and took a whiff, his ear twitching.
“Lubricant. You’re sure you’re okay?”
I swallowed hard. Was I? My stomach felt like it was swooping around a loop on a roller coaster, on the brink of motion sickness even though I was standing still. I rubbed at the roiling anxiety eating away my guts and nodded.
“Yeah, just… I thought I heard an important echo.”
Fásach’s ears drew back, and he fell into silence as the gusts of icy air battered us and he hooked our little caravan back together. He glanced down the path, following the cables into the distance as far as visibility would allow.
“Trav said we should avoid the relay station, but I think we have to go,” he explained. “They’ll have diagnostic tools, and I’m worried about that nosebleed.”
[Calculation] Thinking of the relay station with a real shelter and extra supplies eased the knot of impendingsomethingin my chest. I exhaled slowly to calm my nerves. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Just take it slow. Got it?”
I nodded again as he pulled my visor off my belt and handed it to me. I clipped it in place with shaky fingers, shielding my face from the brutal weather. Marching towards the front of the line, I made sure the vital pods weren’t tangled, then trudged through the fresh snow.
17
Fás and I walked in silence with nothing but the company of our breath and the howling gusts of snow that raced down our path along a narrow crevasse. Its walls were smooth with the drip of water between ice melts, like a sea parting the ancient black rocks. Old, reflective, neon flags were encased in the ice, still visible to our left as we walked.
Overhead, thick powerlines bounced in and out of the white winds of the blizzard, taunting me. Halos spiraled around their black silicone casings, some dashed off their rowdy cords by the force of the gusts, shattering against the mountains. Compared to the rhythmic silence of Svargapan Samudr, the cacophony of data was a relief. And they were getting stronger, more opaque. I could tune radio stations in and out now, though they were faded and intercut with other transmissions. Some of it was encrypted and sounded like biognostic quantum speech.
Alotof it was encrypted, actually.
I was pondering this when I led us around a tight corner and stopped, my mouth falling open.
Relay Station Pahadthi 03 was a megastructure, alive and godly from its perch on a cliff on the other side of a wide crescent of snow dunes that might have been described as an arctic cove. The frozen surface of Svargapan pushed against the dunes like thousands of blades of crystal and glass, and dozens of snaking cables converged in a black mass, slithering up thecliffside to seek refuge in the station’s tower. Its mass faded into the distance, the gigantic bowl of its antenna open-faced to the storm.
Sucking data out of the air like a whale’s maw swallowing plankton.
“Scocite,”Fásach swore directly into my aural sensor from his linguitor. “It’s…”
“Magnificent,” I breathed, mesmerized. Unlike the surge that threatened to fry my unit, the constant stream of data here soothed me like a warm sauna. The hairs stood on the back of my neck and goosebumps erupted across my limbs.
[Priority] The echo that I’d lostsurelycame here. Fásach was right to bring us, even if Traveler had warned us away. Whatever I’d caught a glimpse of was important.
