"What's a beta field generator? A bomb?"
"No. Bombs leave stuff behind. Beta field generators were created to dispose of stuff like asteroids that were threatening human-occupied moons and planets or something like a colony ship. They just…make anything inside the field go away."
Kira frowned at Jason. "Are they still on the remains of the great ship above us?"
"No. We scanned that. Your ship was completely stripped of useful equipment." Jason scratched his head. "The crew must have brought them down, maybe so they'd be sure of having access to them if another ship did come. I wonder what they did with them?"
"Once the Urth ship leaves," Kira said, "we need to get you to the librarians' tower on Altis so you can see if those beta things are there. The librarians say they have no weapons, but maybe they wouldn't recognize them. Anyway, Urth didn't know the crew had deliberately broken off communications. Why didn't they send a ship?"
He blinked in surprise. "They haven't told you? I mean, over the ERIS transmissions?"
"Just generalities. My mother says they kind of talk around it."
"I guess they consider it controversial." Jason leaned back against the mast, his expression unhappy. "I'm going to talk money first, even though that wasn't the main reason. They would have had to build a ship. It wouldn't have been as expensive as a colony ship, but it would've been a lot of money. On top of that, when the transmissions from here stopped, they had to wait until the light from your star reached Earth so we could tell if there had been some solar disaster that wiped you out. That took a long time. Years. The sense of urgency was a lot lower by the time Earth saw that nothing had happened that could be spotted from so far off."
"All right," Kira said. "Expensive, and you had to wait. Those weren't the biggest reasons?"
"No." Jason looked at her. "They didn't have the Asaro-Ashmead drive that the ship I came on uses, so the trip here to find out what had happened to you, if there were any survivors, would have taken more than a century. The crew that started out would die along the way, and their children and children's children would be the ones who arrived here, just like on the colony ship. All Earth knew was that whatever had happened to you had hit so suddenly and so completely that none of the status reports had mentioned any problems before they cut off. Whatever had caused that was probably still here. So when the second ship finally got here, they might fall prey to the same thing. The ethics of sending a crew on what seemed to be a one-way suicide mission was bad enough, but sending the unborn children of a crew on a mission like that? Knowing the crew would have to have those kids and raise them knowing that they'd probably be killed by whatever had happened to you guys? How do you decide doing that is okay?"
"Don't say okay," Kira reminded him. She frowned, feeling depressed. "It wouldn't have been. Not if there was every reason to believe they'd die when they got here. Didn't anyone consider the possibility that the crew had deliberately stopped communicating? That they were disobeying their orders and their responsibilities to the passengers?"
"No," Jason said. "It didn't happen anywhere else. Some of that second- and third-generation crew on the ship that came here must have been major sociopaths with mad political skills, but how could anyone tell that from brief status updates? Even now—" He stopped speaking abruptly.
Kira recognized Jason's reaction when he had said too much. "What?"
He shrugged. "There are people descended from families that the crew came from. And they've been arguing ever since you reestablished contact that you guys are making things up, that there was some other disaster caused by the passengers and that you guys are blaming the crew to hide your own responsibility. I never believed that," Jason added hastily. "Not many people do. But some listen. Imagine how those families would have reacted to pure speculation that it was all the crew's fault."
"Nobody would've wanted to believe it," Kira said. "Would they? So they would have assumed a natural disaster of some kind, or a disease."
"Yeah. Something."
"Or the storm the Mages foresaw, that was going to destroy so much on our world if my mother didn't stop it from coming." Kira stared at the distant line where sky and sea merged, the light growing where the sun would soon rise, old feelings of misery rising as well in her. "And she did it. The daughter of Jules, come at last. She's not just brave, she's fearless. And she had me. I'm all she and Father have. How can people expect me to take over the daughter's job?"
Jason frowned. "What did that guy say, Kira? The one who gave us a ride to Denkerk? Didn't he say that he hoped the daughter's girl would be up to the job?"
"I can't…yeah, I think he did."
"He did," Jason said. "I don't think everyone on this world expects you to take over your mom's job. I think they're hoping you'll be able to do it."
She felt an unseen burden lifting off of her. "Do you think so? That would be rational, wouldn't it? And it means the pressure's off! No one who actually knows me is going to think…" Her momentary elation shifted to puzzlement. "Why didn't Gari tell me that? Why didn't he say, 'Don't worry, Kira, everybody who knows you knows that you couldn't ever do that.'"
"You'd want people to say that to you?" Jason asked.
"Um…maybe not, but it's the truth, so they ought to. Right?" He didn't answer, the only sounds the ship's wood creaking, the ripple of water alongside, and the wind sighing through the rigging. "Isn't that right, Jason?"
"Do you want the truth?" he said in a low voice. "Or do you want what you think you want to hear?"
"What does that mean?" Kira demanded.
He looked at her. "It means that you want me to tell you that the people who know you don't think you could do the sort of stuff your mother did. But the truth is, they think you're a whole lot more than you think you are."
She stared at him, unable to sort out the feelings clashing inside her. "Why would you say something like that?" Kira finally got out.
"Because you asked me what I thought the truth was."
Anger and frustration finally came to rest amid the other emotions pummeling her. "Then I guess I'd better not ever ask you something like that again! If you won't be honest with me—"
"I am being honest with you!"
"How could—" Kira stopped speaking, puzzled, as a black cloud suddenly appeared where the sun was just beginning to rise in a blaze of red splendor. "What's that?"
"What's what?" Jason asked, looking in the same direction.
"That black cloud. It's right where the sun is rising. It's getting darker! And there are, like, purple swirls in it…and…and dark lightning! How can there be dark lightning?"
"Kira, I don't see any black cloud." His gaze on her grew worried. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine! I…it just went away. Disappeared." She felt a shiver run down her back. "Foresight. Father has told me foresight shows up that way sometimes."
"Foresight?" Jason stared at her. "You have foresight?"
"Ummm…"
"How can you have foresight? That's a Mage thing, isn't it?"
Kira fixed her eyes on him. "Don't tell anyone. The important thing right now is that there's danger coming. Serious danger."
"All hands up!" the first mate hailed from the deck. "The glass is dropping fast! We've got a big storm on the way!"
The moment she heard those words, Kira realized that was what her foresight had warned of. Not just a big storm. A very dangerous storm.
The crew spent the entire morning tying down every loose object on deck and below deck, lashing everything with double and triple lengths of rope and multiple knots. The first mate and the captain examined their work, often shaking their heads and ordering another line, pulled tighter, with more knots. All the time they were working the wind grew in strength, veering around to the east so that The Son of Taris was taking it square on the starboard quarter aft, and the swells on the surface of the sea built in size. Clouds had streamed in, first a high, thin layer, then heavy thunderheads that hung menacingly low in the sky and
blocked so much sunlight that by midday it seemed night was coming on.
"Are you frightened, girl?" the first mate asked Kira during a momentary pause in preparations.
"No," Kira said. "Actually, yes."
"Good. You should be. I am. If you've never felt the sea's wrath, girl, you've never learned your place in the world. For all our pride we're nothing measured against an angry sea." She fixed Kira with a look. "But if you let the fear rule you, it will kill you. Remember that."
Kira stared at the increasingly rough waters, wishing that she was without fear, like her mother.
The first mate ordered them aloft, bringing in all sails but the mainsail and topsail. They'd scarcely come back down the rigging before they were sent aloft again, this time with orders to reef the mainsail, fastening part of it to the spar so that the sail area was reduced by half. By now the wind had risen into a gale, occasional more powerful gusts setting the taut rigging to singing as if the entire ship were a musical instrument about to be played by clumsy giants.
Despite the sea legs she had acquired in her time at sea, Kira staggered as the deck tilted up then twisted as the ship corkscrewed down into a trough. The seas had risen even more while they had been aloft, the swells looming higher and higher while the troughs gaped deeper and deeper. When the ship rose stern-first to meet a swell, the motion was as abrupt and sickening as an impossible fall upward. But each rise was followed by another twist and fall as the ship slid down the back end of the swell into the trough.
Kira hung onto the mainmast, staring at the swells which were now rising higher than the deck. The sheer force of the water was awesome. She understood now what the first mate had meant. Against the immeasurable power of the sea, Kira's own strength seemed of no value at all. The ship itself was already dwarfed by the forces of nature which kept rising to higher levels of fury. Around her, Kira could see fear on the faces of the rest of the crew.
The first mate came running back from the quarterdeck to address the crew gathered near the mainmast. "The captain's lashing himself to the wheel along with Fasi and Dax," she shouted over the increasing ferocity of the storm. "It'll take all three of them to keep the ship under control. If we don't keep her stern to these seas we'll be swamped in short order. All of you lash yourselves to a mast with a stout lifeline."
Kira stared for a moment, then seeing everyone else grabbing rope and tying one end to the mast and the other end around their waists started doing the same. She lost track of Jason for a moment, then saw him at the foremast, tying himself to another line. He looked her way, his eyes unusually large in a face drawn with apprehension.
A moment later the rain hit, not in a gentle buildup of raindrops but as if the heavens were emptying an endless series of buckets on the ship. Kira wavered on her feet, pummeled by the battering sheets of rain, as she hastily finishing knotting the rope about her waist.
The ship rose again with a sickening lurch, the bowsprit seeming to aim for the sky, then fell as if the bottom had dropped out of the sea beneath them. The bow buried itself in a welter of water and foam that burst out to either side and along the deck, washing over Kira's feet. She clung to the mast, staring at the roaring seas towering about them, blinking away the rain sheeting across her face and flinching under the lash of the wind which had grown steadily colder.
Another wave, surging across the deck and tugging at Kira's ankles. I can handle this, she kept repeating to herself, wondering if it were true, as the fury of the storm battered at her inner illusions just as it tore at her on the outside. It's scary. I've never felt so tiny. But I can face this, I have to face this, just like my mother faced the Imperial legions. This can't be as bad as that was. I want you to be proud of me, Mother, even though I'm not you and could never be you. That's all I've ever really wanted. Please don't let me do anything that would make my mother ashamed.
Yells and pointing arms alerted her to something on the starboard quarter where the seas were coming at the ship. Kira looked aft, then froze, unable to move for a moment.
A wave stood there, coming higher and higher over the rail, rising above it like the hand of a giant, dark water tipped with white foam. It rushed down upon the ship with a thunderous blow that shook the vessel, breaking in solid water across the deck. Kira had only a moment to gape at the monstrous shape sweeping down on her, then it struck with tremendous force, driving the breath from her. Her grip on the mast failed instantly under the titanic force of the wave and Kira tumbled through the water, helpless, until she reached the end of the rope around her waist. It jerked her to a painful stop, then with a snap that sounded over the roar of the storm it broke where unseen rot had weakened it and Kira found herself borne by the onrushing water forward and toward the other side of the ship, grabbing frantically for anything she saw. A halyard dangled from above, whipping wildly in the wind, and Kira made a desperate lunge for it, getting only a partial grip on it, hanging on for a few seconds until the wet line slipped from her grasp.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Jason. He was engulfed in the wave as well, but staring at her, a knife in his hand slashing at the rope holding him to the foremast. Then she lost sight of him as the rushing wave twisted her about. She caught at the gunwale, pitting human strength against the force of an angry sea, but felt her grip loosening as the irresistible weight of the water pushed her to the rail and over.
Chapter 12
Kira saw the gunwale falling away from her as she was pushed toward the hungry waves below. Everything seemed to move so slowly: her arm raised toward the rail now just out of her grasp and forever beyond her reach, the rage of the storm and her own futile efforts almost frozen in what Kira knew must be the last seconds of her life.
As if in a dream someone's arm shot into view over the rail, then Jason appeared, riding the wave, one hand locking onto the top of the gunwale, the other reaching for her, Jason himself over the side but holding on, arms fully extended, his free hand closing on her arm just below the wrist and clamping tight with a grip so hard it hurt.
Kira's fall halted with a jolt, the last rush of the wave past, her dangling over the waves, Jason holding her arm and clinging to the rail, his face twisted with effort. "Let go of me!" Kira shouted. "You'll fall, too!"
"No!" Jason yelled, straining to pull her up.
The ship jerked upward as she rolled toward the next trough, bringing them hard against the hull. Kira used the motion to boost herself against the side of the ship, managed to get one hand onto the rail, then she and Jason twisted over the top of the gunwale and fell to the deck inside.
Kira barely had time to blink in disbelief that she was still alive when over the roar of the sea and the storm she faintly heard shouts of warning. "Here comes another!"
A second monstrous wave rose on the starboard quarter, already sweeping toward them. Huddled against the inside of the gunwale, Kira ran her arm through a tiedown next to her, wrapped the other arm firmly around Jason, then curled up to take the force of the wave.
It hit in a welter of solid water and foam that slammed her against the gunwale, seeming to take forever to subside. Kira gasped for breath as the water finally eased, looking over at Jason, trying to understand what had just happened, what he had just done. But there was no time for anything except trying to survive the next wave. Kira got her arm loose and helped Jason stand against the force of the wind, the rain, and the pitching deck, both of them staggering toward the mainmast.
The first mate yelled something as she freed her own lifeline. Kira and Jason scrambled that way as the deck tilted wildly and the wind howled with renewed fury. "—take in the sail!" Kira heard the first mate saying. A piece of rigging snapped, the rope swinging through the air with a wooden tackle block attached. The first mate had barely an instant to realize the heavy wooden block was coming at her before it hit, striking a glancing blow to her head and tossing her to fall in a heap, her lifeline loose beside her.
The rest of the crew star
ed at her as another monster wave rose off the stern of the ship. As one, they began backing away in the direction of the nearest hatch belowdecks, their hands on the knots of their lifelines, while Kira watched, appalled.
She leaped forward recklessly and seized the first mate's limp body, grabbing a firm hold on the mast with her other hand, then screamed at the other sailors, her voice somehow rising above the storm. "Get back here now!" They stared at her but they came, responding to her command. "Help me hold her!"
Other hands came, and when the wave washed brutally past they barely managed to hold onto the first mate. "Tie her to the mast!" Kira ordered, fumbling for rope. Once again the crew did as she said, propping up the unconscious first mate and running a rope under her arms to fasten her in a standing position against the mast.
Only then did Kira look around, just in time to see another wave coming and crouch to take the blow on her back, the force pinning her to the mast. Staggering up again, Kira stared at one of the crew as water ran from her face and body, whipping away under the force of savage gusts of wind. "What was she saying?"
The sailor pointed up, his face contorted by fear. "We have to take in the mainsail. Even reefed it's drawing too much in this wind. We'll lose the mast."
Lose the mast. Kira had no trouble imagining what would happen to this ship if the mast broke. As if to emphasize the sailor's words, the mast emitted a tortured groan as a renewed gust of wind hurled itself into the sails.
But no one was moving. They were huddled there, faces stark with fear, trying to keep from being swept away. Kira looked over at Jason and saw him staring at her, his face a mask of dread in the gloom.
She knew what had to be done. She looked up, seeing the mast and spars swinging dizzyingly against the storm-tossed sky, knowing what it must be like up there. Kira glanced down again, seeing the sailors starting to stare at the hatch belowdecks once more. With the first mate unconscious, and the captain tied to the helm, unable to see what had happened through the murk of the storm, they lacked a voice to tell them what to do, to focus them on something other than their fear. If something wasn't done, they'd panic and flee, and the sail would stay taut and the mast would break and they'd all be at the mercy of a sea which had no mercy this day.