Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [213]
Sirix paused for a prolonged moment. At last he said, “Now you begin to see the potential of free actions. However, I must educate you to make better choices in the future.”
With a swift snap like a serpent’s tongue being drawn back into its mouth, Sirix reeled in the ragged end of his cable, then sealed the opening in his body core. The normal set of six articulated arms took its place. “Now help me finish these repairs.”
Chapter 108—JESS TAMBLYN
Jess did not bother using standard human coordinates or Ildiran starmaps to find Jonah 12...or Cesca. With his mind connected to the wentals, he simply homed in on Nikko Chan Tylar’s ship. He could sense they were all in terrible danger. Hurt badly...perhaps dying.
His water-and-pearl ship soon arrived at the far-flung planetoid. With vision magnified through the curvature of his water-membrane spacecraft, he stared in sick disbelief at a wide, simmering crater that glowed with residual radioactivity after an immense explosion.
Spiderweb cracks spread out through the frozen crust, as if the planetoid itself had nearly shattered. Vaporized methane snow roared up from the surrounding crater, forming an immense anvil-shaped thunderhead that dissipated into the vacuum. It looked as if an asteroid or a comet had slammed into the base. Jess thought of his strange wental-impregnated comet, but sensed that it was on a mission of its own, flying to its chosen destination. This had been caused by something else.
If that had been the Roamer base, nothing could have survived down there. “Oh, Cesca...” More words refused to come. Emotions welled up inside of him like a geyser forced up from beneath the ice sheet on Plumas. So many dreams, so many feelings, all of them unspoken...all of them too late.
Then he stretched his thoughts out through the water entities—and was astonished when they connected with the wental specimens aboard Nikko’s ship, the Aquarius. At first he thought the liquid creatures had somehow survived in the frozen environment, perhaps infusing the ice of Jonah 12 as they had in the wandering comet...but then he received direct images through his mind’s eye. Nikko’s ship had crashed, but the wental samples were intact. Aquarius retained part of its integrity...and Nikko and Cesca were still alive!
Jess dodged the huge cloud of ice and gases and cruised over the destroyed landscape until he found the dying ship crumpled on an icy plain. A long gouge showed that the Aquarius had crashed, skidded, and rolled. Pieces of the hull and mangled engine components lay strewn behind where the ship had finally ground to a halt. The hull of the Aquarius had ruptured, opening several compartments to the cold vacuum, but the main piloting chamber was intact.
Although Jess was stunned by the extent of the damage, the wentals reassured him that two passengers clung to life. Through the specimens inside the Aquarius, he heard Nikko speaking to Cesca. “It’s Jess Tamblyn. He’s come for us.”
Cesca said weakly, “I knew he would.” The words seemed to take every last scrap of her energy. She’d been thrown like a discarded doll when the spacecraft tumbled and rolled. Jess could feel that she was badly hurt, broken inside, bleeding internally, but the wentals did not understand her physiology.
Of more immediate importance, the two survivors didn’t have much air left—and in his water-filled wental ship, Jess didn’t know what he could do. He brought his spherical vessel over the crash site. “Find me a solution,” he demanded of the interconnected water entities. “Can I repair the Aquarius? Can I take the two humans to safety aboard this ship?”
You can take the whole spacecraft. We will show you how.
Cesca had lost consciousness, her skin gray with cold, blood running from her nose; Nikko huddled beside her in the only intact space within their ship, gasping in the last few wisps of air. In the large coral-frameworked vessel, Jess hovered like a full moon just above the wreck. Nikko shouted questions to the wental samples, but his connection with the entities