Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [141]
He squeezed her wrist and climbed out.
She watched him dash across the launch bay and out into the corridor. What could have been so important that—?
The hatch closed and clicked. She looked out across the empty bay. “Solly?”
The engine changed pitch again.
She tried to raise him on the commlink. “Where are you, Solly?”
The connecting door between the launch bay and the corridor swung shut. A ferocious fear gripped her. “Solly!”
“Kim.” His voice came from the link. “Kim, I’m sorry.”
“No!” she shrieked at him. “You can’t do this—”
“I’ve no choice, Kim. Listen to me—”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can’t detonate Hammersmith from the lander.”
“But you said—”
“I lied. I’m sorry, I lied. If I hadn’t you’d have insisted on staying, and I couldn’t allow that.”
“Then back off. Let the Patrol do this. They can blow the thing to hell.” She was trying to get the door open so she could get out of the lander but red lights were blinking, telling her the air pressure outside had begun to drop. Everything was sealed.
“There isn’t time, Kim. They’re not going to attack an Institute ship on our say-so. The thing’ll get away. It’ll go home with the Hammersmith and they’ll know where we live.”
“Please, Solly,” she sobbed. “Don’t do this.”
The lander was moving beneath her, slipping its moorings.
“I can’t fly this thing, Solly.”
“You don’t have to. The initial launch will get you clear. Then just tell the computer to take you to the Patrol. Or wait for them to pick you up.”
“Solly, I don’t want to live without you.”
“I know, babe. Always have.”
She banged her fists against the hatch. “No, Solly. No no no no—”
“Goodbye, Kim. Don’t forget me.”
She squeezed her eyes against the flood of tears. Engines surged. The launch gear clicked and whined. Then the lander dropped and she was out among the stars.
Another voice broke into the cockpit. The Patrol. “—Please advise, lander,” it was saying. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t do it, Solly,” she screamed. “I’m coming back. Lander, take me back to the Hammersmith.”
But a brilliant flash illuminated the cockpit. And she heard the Patrol voice saying “Holy God.”
22
Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. One would almost wish that all true and faithful friends expire on the same day.
—FRANÇOIS FÉNELON, On the Death of the
Duc de Chevreuse, 1714 C.E.
Kim was barely aware of being retrieved by the Patrol. They gave her something to calm her down. They assigned a female officer to stay with her until the trank took effect, and Kim fell into a nightmarish sleep in which Solly was alive and well and talking to her as if nothing had happened, but she knew he was dead, knew it was only a reprieve until she returned to the real world.
She had flashes of being carried on a stretcher, of getting into the lift at Sky Harbor, of being loaded into a flyer.
The real world, when she got back to it, consisted of white sheets, an uncomfortable pillow, and Matt Flexner. And the impression that somebody else was standing behind him.
“How’re you feeling, Kim?”
There were blank spots in her memory. She recalled the lander, but not how she’d got on it. She recalled finding Emily, but not how they’d tracked her down. She knew that Solly was gone. But that knowledge was attended by a general numbness.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”
“You want to tell us what happened?”
The person behind him came abruptly into focus. Canon Woodbridge. Casually dressed in black slacks and a gray pullover. She hadn’t seen him since the night they’d launched the Beacon Project. He came forward, essayed a smile, pulled up a chair, and said hello.
Kim returned the greeting. Then: