This exchange of messages was interrupted by one from Markus: need u.
She pocketed the phone to free her hands for movement through Izzy, maneuvered through the maze of habitation modules to the Stack, and headed aft, bound for the Tank. The trip down the Stack took no time at all. A week ago she would have had to maneuver around people clumped in twos and threes for conversation. Since Markus had declared PSAPS, this had changed; one of his edicts had been that the Stack must be kept clear for rapid movement of essential personnel. Right now it was as empty as she’d ever seen it. Down in the Zvezda module she saw some comings and goings, and recognized, for a moment, the spiky profile of Moira’s hair. She would be busy making preparations to disperse the Human Genetic Archive to the cloud, a project that in and of itself was at least as complicated as anything happening with swarms and params. Essential personnel indeed.
Luisa popped into view down in H1 and propelled herself up the Stack like she meant business. After nearly colliding with one of Moira’s helpers, she let her momentum carry her up into Zarya, then stopped hard at the entrance to the tube that led to the Woo-Woo Pod. She looked into it for a few moments, evaluating, then made a decision and pulled herself into it.
Ivy passed by the same location a few moments later, slowed for a moment, and glanced down the length of the tube. It was possible to see straight down its length, across the spherical Pod, and through its windows to the Earth. Normally this meant the blue light of the oceans and the white light of clouds and ice caps. Sometimes, a lot of green when they were passing over well-watered parts of the world, or some yellow when over the Sahara.
Right now the light was orange because the Earth was on fire.
People were screaming down there in the Pod. Luisa must have been sent there to calm people down. Ivy was almost drawn in by a sort of magnetic power of fascination. Earth looked as if some god had attacked it with a welder’s torch, slashing away at it and leaving thin trails of incandescence. Some of these were red and steady: things burning on the ground. Others were blinding bluish-white and evanescent: trails drawn through the atmosphere by meteorites.
She fancied she could almost feel the warmth radiating from the planet.
Markus needed her. She couldn’t help the screaming people down in the Pod. She turned her head aft and pushed on.
Hovering in the entrance to the genetic storage modules, Moira was ticking off items on her tablet, listening, dead faced, to something on a large pair of headphones. She noticed Ivy. She peeled a headphone away from one ear and aimed it at her. Ivy recognized a cappella music, medieval polyphony. “King’s College is holding up rather well,” she said. “Do you know the piece?”
“I’m certain I’ve heard it before, but I can’t place it,” Ivy said.
“Allegri’s ‘Miserere mei, Deus,’” Moira said. Thanks to the Morg’s insistence that she take Latin, Ivy knew what it meant: Have mercy on me, O God.
“It’s beautiful.”
“They would sing it at Tenebrae, in the wee hours, as they extinguished the candles one by one.”
“Thank you, Moira.”
“Thank you, Ivy.”
A minute later she was in T3. As always, she stood flat-footed for a moment to get the feel of simulated gravity, then headed toward the Farm and the Tank. Passing through the utility section she considered getting herself a cup of coffee. Then she felt shock and shame over the fact that she was thinking about coffee while her planet was being set on fire.
Then she poured herself a cup of coffee anyway and stepped into the Farm. This was crowded. Most of the Situational Awareness Monitors were showing status displays relating to the functions of the Cloud Ark. The big one at the head of the room was just showing a view of Earth through a camera aimed in that direction. But the video image had nothing like the impact of seeing it directly through the windows of the Woo-Woo Pod. The arc-light intensity of the streaking bolides was reduced to a blurry flare of maxed-out pixels. Out of habit she wondered why they didn’t change the channel to CNN, or Al Jazeera, or one of the other full-time news networks. Then she remembered what was happening.
She proceeded to the door that led into the Tank.
Flanking it was a pair of people who were doing nothing—just standing there. Odd.
She noticed that both of them had unfamiliar devices slung from their belts.
She realized that they were Tasers.