Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt [161]
“That’s okay. Just get us through.”
The granite wall blocked off the sky.
“You’re aware the train may not be adhering to schedule?”
“It is,” she said.
“Zero,” said the timer as they roared into the tunnel. Their lights flashed against stone walls. The track raced beneath them.
“I hope you understand that disconnecting the pilot is a misdemeanor, punishable by fine or imprisonment or both.”
“Please keep your mind on what you’re doing,” she said.
“Were you aware that battery capacity is quite low?”
“Yes.”
“There seems to have been an accident. How could you have burned out the system?”
“Let it go for now, Jerry. Get us out the other end and I’ll replace everything. Promise.”
“That’s very strange.”
“What is?”
“Another vehicle has just entered the tunnel behind us.”
“Good.” The shroud was going to have a hard time in the flyer’s wake. “Got you, you son of a bitch.”
The flyer’s lights stabbed ahead into the dark. Kim clung to her chair arms, pushing herself back hard in the seat. The walls were slowing down.
She glanced at the gauges. They’d dropped to 170 kph. And they were still dropping. “Jerry—”
“Kim, we cannot maintain stability at this velocity.”
“You can’t slow down, Jerry. We’ve got to stay at two hundred klicks. Or we won’t get out the other end.”
“Can’t be done. Not without hitting the wall.”
“Jerry—”
“I did not create this situation.” The voice was accusing. Petulant.
It was 9:37. They had five minutes to clear the tunnel. “Jerry, we have to try—”
“I am sorry. I have no alternative but to slow to a manageable velocity.”
They were dropping past 150.
“It’s a question of probability. There is none that we can negotiate this tunnel at the minimum velocity you require. There is a slight possibility the train will be late. If it is—”
She pulled the plug on him and tried to take over but the tunnel walls were roaring by too fast, she couldn’t control the vehicle and had to drop even more speed, down past 120, past a hundred.
The shroud had fallen well behind, but it was still coming.
At 9:40 she was just barely halfway through.
She touched eighty and steadied. The world was slowing. With a pang of regret she thought of Solly, of dying young, of the mystery she would not live to solve.
The timer counted down to 9:42:45. The freight was in the tunnel, or damned soon would be, the two vehicles bearing down on each other at a combined speed of three hundred kilometers per hour.
Not good.
The guide rail bumped the bottom of the aircraft. Kim held on, slowed more.
Ahead, a light flickered. The single searching beam of the freight’s headlamp.
School was out.
She fired the retros and the flyer came down on the track, skidded, turned, pitched over the side into the lower level and slammed into the wall. Kim was thrown hard against her restraints. The cabin lights went out, something crackled and began to burn, and she ended up hanging upside down in her seat.
The tunnel walls, ceiling, guide-rail supports, everything disappeared into the blazing cone of the oncoming headlight.
She was down on the lower level, the flyer jammed in nose first, its tail sticking up in the path of the freight. Kim hit the release and fell out of her seat.
She kicked the door open and scrambled out. The tunnel shook.
She staggered forward a few meters, trying to get clear of the aircraft, and caught a final glimpse of the shroud, which was silhouetted in the oncoming glare.
The track was supported by stanchions, one every ten meters or so. Kim threw herself at the base of the nearest one, grabbed hold, and buried her head. The train boomed past and ripped into the wrecked flyer. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to burrow down into the concrete as a hurricane of wind and screeching metal rolled over her. The ground rocked.
26
If it is true that artifacts are fragments of lost worlds, it is equally true they are mirrors of our own.
—TAIA DELLARIA, A Brief History of Minagwan Archeology, 588
She woke up in