Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [34]
“I can’t do it…” His voice caught in his throat. He was a child again, helpless to affect what he saw. “There’s no way to replicate or match their power levels. It’s… it’s time-compressed somehow. This is like cramming a whole year’s worth of starship power into one day. The grave ship’s still working on other-universe time.”
“We can’t keep the gateway open then,” Shucorion concluded.
“Not a chance,” Bonifay mourned on a sob. “We have the energy, but we can’t time-compress it.” He slumped further, and pressed his hands to his face and fingerpainted with his own tears. “Can’t we go after him?”
“No.”
Bonifay pivoted sharply. “Why not? Because you won’t take a risk?”
“Because he ordered us not to go.”
Perhaps Bonifay saw the misery in Shucorion’s own expression, for he retracted his contempt and went back to simple suffering.
Shucorion pressed his elbow to the rail, leaned there, and peered at the gateway. “I should never have let him go.”
Behind him, Bonifay mumbled something in a dull tone. The words were lost.
Shucorion turned. “Something?”
With an agonized sigh, Bonifay slumped back against the useless readout board. “I said… it’s not your fault.”
“My thanks. I don’t know my role here yet. Thus, I fail.”
“You’re in command now. That’s your role.” Bonifay gathered his emotions somewhat and turned back to his miserable attempts to widen this narrowing tunnel they were in.
The turbolift hissed. When Shucorion turned, Delytharen stood on the quarterdeck, unhappy and stern.
“Avedon,” Shucorion greeted.
“I have come for the criminal,” the Blood commander announced.
“Mr. Keller has not yet returned.”
“He never will return. The gateway has consumed him. I offer my sympathies.”
“Your sympathies!” Grief boiled out of Bonifay. He pushed up from his chair.
Shucorion raced to the aft steps and got between them in time to block Bonifay’s charge. Delytharen, though missing an arm and twice Bonifay’s age, would easily have turned the bosun to pulp. In fact, the other avedon did not even flinch at the attempted threat.
“He is in my custody,” Shucorion said, holding Bonifay behind his arm. “The agreement will be satisfied.”
Delytharen tilted his head and scolded, “You know better than this…”
“I do, but I’m stalling.”
Bonifay relaxed his pressure on Shucorion’s arm. “Subtle.”
“You must realize Keller is wrong to protect him,” Delytharen attempted. “Belle Terre needs Blood Many, and we will not help them if Keller refuses to punish this man.”
“Questions have arisen,” Shucorion said. He heard uncertainty come out in his tone and knew Delytharen heard it too. “Flexibility may be required from Blood Many.”
“Never.” Delytharen shifted and gazed at him. “You will topple us all with these caprices. You should be the bulwark here. Instead, you flex.”
“He’s a rebel,” Bonifay commented. “Rebels flex.” The anger seemed to have gone out of him, or something else had taken over. He moved back, away from Delytharen and Shucorion, folded his arms, and sadly leaned against the burbling consoles at the communications station.
“I will take him,” Delytharen quietly claimed.
Shucorion shook his head. “Not until”
“Activity!” On the sci-deck Savannah Ring bolted to the forward rail. “Oh, please!”
At the helm and nav stations, Creighton and Quinones popped to renewed life, to new tension. Zoa stood up at tactical, staring forward.
“Sir, I’m readying metallic objects!” Creighton cried. “Could it be ships?”
At the helm, Quinones blurted, “Should we go and meet them? Should we?”
Dropping from the quarterdeck to the main arena, Shucorion felt his chest tighten. “I will never doubt him again if he has done this thing…”
No one else spoke as they watched the gateway’s insides smolder, brighten like a spotlight behind smoke,