Chapter One

Dara was long minutes getting through to Torv. His face was all angles. "You're alive," he sighed. He glanced to one side and then his attention was back on her.

"What's going on, Torv?" She felt like she was back to following him in school. "What about Jurri, and Yarbon?" She was drifting inside a vast hole.

"We're managing it. Tonwe set off explosions in the chamber which combusted the methane and oxygen he'd introduced," his voice was metallic and his words fell like slabs of iron. "Landing became a rocket engine briefly. Jurri was close enough to the blast to be struck by debris, and her shuttle is disabled but has air."

Dara sighed, and absently wiped her wet face, "Is she OK?"

She waited, and Torv nodded, "We have confirmation."

Why are you talking like that? she wanted to yell at him, but she didn't know that she was handling it any better than him. "What about the habitat?"

Torv smiled grimly, "Apparently Yarbon didn't trust the habitat, so he made the domes airtight."

Figures. "But how did they know to hide in there?" There was too much she didn't know.

"It's a big space. It takes a long time to empty, and the penetration wasn't deliberate. It was micrometeorite-sized. It's being fixed. Less than two percent of air lost."

"What is all this?" Dara waved her hand helplessly. "Just got away from the zombies Morem has made of his crew, and now Rorno is nearly dead. And Landing," she stuttered to a stop.

"One problem at a time. Landing has four days."

"And my mother?"

"She's been in touch with Tourlene. She's alive, although mad as hell." Torv smiled, "I'm on my way to Landing. You should go to Tourlene."

Dara remembered, "I can't. Morem's ship was infected. Nanos. And according to Aral, we're carrying them. And Rorno's acting like the others when the main power was cut."

"OK," Torv thought quickly while his hands moved over the controls of his shuttle. "I'll send word to Tourlene. You'll have a headache for a while, but we'll clear the shuttle of nanos."

Dara knew what he meant. An EMP like the one they'd used on the probe. She glanced at her father. He was blinking, but that might have been autonomic. Otherwise, he was inert. "Let me know when you hear from my mother, and Jurri."

Torv assured her that he would, and she turned the shuttle toward the dock. It was already crowded with ships, for Tourlene's call had been heard. As she hovered, Pardos' ship came alongside. Her radio crackled, and then Pardos gave her instructions. She was to back against one of the smaller fragments, on the side which faced the outside of the field, and wait. "You'll know," Pardos said grimly.

While she waited, Dara called Rijurn. Her answer was a blast of noise, as static fought with the signal and then the screen cleared and she could see Emirin and Rijurn. "I'm fine," she tried to assure them, but her face gave her away.

"Are you afraid?" Emirin asked, and Rijurn grimaced at her.

"We're going to be fine," she assured the child. "I was on Morem's ship, but I escaped." She didn't want to say she'd rescued Rorno in case he died. His breathing was shallow and his eyes had closed.

"Did you have to fight?" Emirin had been watching vids, apparently.

"A little bit, but it was mostly other people who rescued me."

Rijurn tried to convince Emirin to leave, but she insisted on hearing what Dara had to say. Finally, Dara said it was fine. "Are you really OK?" Rijurn asked, her voice cracking. "I heard Tourlene's broadcast."

"I'm fine," Dara was playing for two audiences, just like when she used to talk to Jurri while her mother listened. "The habitat is being repaired." She carefully didn't mention Landing and her mother. Emirin had grown attached to the distant woman, and the thought that she was in danger might cause the child to stowaway on another ship, going to help yet another adult who couldn't manage their own affairs. "Tonwe has apparently taken the science ship, but Torv doesn't seem worried about that." He must have hidden his own bomb on board. "Hopefully we don't lose that too."

"What about Jurri? And Eldurn? And Mac?" Rijurn looked like she was listing their friends at a funeral.

"Jurri is being picked up. Her ship was struck. Eldurn was working on the enclosure." She hesitated, remembering Tourlene's cryptic message. "You any idea why she called him that?"

Rijurn pointed with her eyes at Emirin and Dara nodded. "Mac chased after Jurri. Tourlene sent him."

Dara thought about the implications. She didn't fancy Tonwe's chances if Mac caught him. "I'll have to ask Torv--"

When she woke she was floating off the flight seat and her father's body was drifting nearby. Her head pounding, she pushed at the ceiling and that got her close enough to the seat to strap in. She flicked the instrument board, but it was dead. The EMP. She reached up, but had to unstrap and then hold with her foot while she pulled her father into the seat next to hers. He looked better already, and when she strapped him in, he moaned involuntarily. She tried talking to him, but with no result. If his head was pounding like her own, she doubted he would want to be conscious anyway.

The shuttle was dead quiet. She'd become accustomed to background fans and motors whirring, but now that everything electronic was fried, she was drifting in a dead hulk. She glanced at her father again. His face was pale, but he looked more relaxed, as though his muscles had been fighting against themselves when he was on Morem's ship. She listened for the clanking which would indicate that she'd been grappled, but the sudden clang still made her start. It was loud in the silence.

She had time to think while Pardos towed her to the dock. She needed to find out from Tourlene what could be done about Landing. Torv didn't seem worried, but even her own weak understanding of orbital mechanics indicated that if Landing left the field then the loose association of the field was threatened. She wished she knew more. Rorno began to twitch and she took his hand. "We're going to be fine," she assured him, although she wasn't sure she believed it.

By the time they were at the dock, Rorno had stopped seizing and was hauling in deep ragged breaths. Ellice had been sent over to take care of him, and she glanced at Dara, and then took him to another room. Dara still had a whanging headache, as though someone had hit her with a hammer, but she staggered to Tourlene's part of the dome. "Update?" she asked.

"You look bleak," Tourlene said. "But you're alive. And that's more than those on Morem's ship."

"Pardos got in?"

"You left the airlock on manual."

Dara couldn't remember her escape around the pounding in her head. "Old habit. We never locked on Garonic."

"What do you mean they were dead?" She tried to imagine what Pardos had found and all she remembered was cutting the tracery of wires which seemed to control Motun. "Some of them should be alive."

Tourlene shrugged. She had enough to think about.

"Habitat?" Her headache made it easier to imitate Tourlene's brevity.

"It has been resealed. It wasn't a significant wound."

Funny word, like a living thing. "Landing?"

"Jurri has been located. She is aboard Stiv's ship." It had stopped being Pardos' ship when she handed it over to Stiv, but it still sounded strange to say it aloud. She shook her head. Her mind was drifting.

"What can we do about Landing?" she closed her eyes.

"It is being done," Tourlene's voice lowered.

"What do you mean?" Dara's eyes fluttered open.

"I have heard from your mother. She warns everyone to stay away from Landing."

"She's fine then," Dara grinned. "Wants to get back to her research." She saw Tourlene's face clench. "What?"

"Your mother is going to blow one of the other chambers. She is gathering Tonwe's equipment as we speak."

"She can't," Dara tried to rise but a spike went through her forehead. "She'll die."

As she faded, she vaguely remembered Tourlene calling for Ellice and lowering her to the floor.

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