When he walks out, though, he stops short. Another mech is waiting for him, one of the only two models that aren’t designed to look human: an X-Ray.
It has two legs, two arms, a trunk, and a head, but instead of skin, it’s covered in a dull reflective surface that can project images from within. This one is tall, nearly two meters, the sort that’s owned by powerful people who want their messages delivered with appropriate authority. Abel walks up to the uncanny thing, which stands waiting, long arms drooping at its sides, dormant until it can deliver the words it’s meant to say.
Behind the X-Ray, Abel can glimpse a viewscreen. Only a small rectangle, a backup view, not meant to steer by. But it’s enough for him to recognize the planet in the distance, their next destination.
For the first time in thirty years, he sees Earth.
As Abel comes within arm’s reach of the X-Ray, it straightens. Its silvery surface pixelates to darkness, then takes shape as it projects the image of human legs, arms, clothing. The outline of that body along its form is meaningless compared to the face that finally appears.
“My one and only boy.” Burton Mansfield smiles with more joy than Abel has ever seen in a human face before. The X-Ray puts its two massive hands on either side of Abel’s head, almost tenderly. “Welcome home.”
31
“ABEL!”
Noemi screams as he falls to the tarmac. She tries to run forward, but Ephraim grabs her arm. “What are you doing? The Queen’s coming our way—we have to move!”
Sure enough, the Queen has started toward them. At first Noemi can only see the Charlie unit scooping up Abel’s inert form and walking toward a hopper with its doors open, waiting for cargo.
What did they do to him? Is he even still alive?
The Queen walks faster, then breaks into a run, directly at them. Noemi’s training kicks in, propelling her to run at top speed toward the Daedalus, with Ephraim just behind her. She’s still weak from the Cobweb, but she runs full-out, holding nothing back. Time to collapse later, or when she’s dead. Doesn’t matter. Surrender is impossible.
But why is the crazy thing after us in the first place?
The Daedalus door spins open, allowing both Noemi and Ephraim to come through. “Lock door!” she yells. “Override external security functions, now!” The spiral plates of the door begin contracting—
—but the Queen’s hands catch them, holding them open with superhuman force. Their edges slice through the flesh of the mech’s palms; yet more blood trickles down the door in lengthening streaks. Mechs feel pain, Noemi knows, but this Queen doesn’t care.
“A blaster.” Ephraim frantically starts searching the docking bay, turning over equipment boxes, pausing only for a moment when he sees bloodstains on the floor before moving to a storage locker. “Tell me you have a blaster on this ship somewhere.”
It’s in her quarters. The others will be in either Abel’s quarters or the bridge. Noemi can’t reach any of them in time to keep the Queen from coming through that door.
She’s trained to fight. But she’s still feeling so weak. She’s exhausted to the point of nausea. Even at top condition, she wouldn’t stand a chance in hand-to-hand combat with a Queen model.
Think, she tells herself. Think!
Using her full mech strength, the Queen begins pulling the doors open. As the gap widens, Noemi calls to Ephraim, “Follow me!” and runs from the bay into the corridor without checking to see whether he does. She hopes he lives, but right now she has one priority that eclipses all the others: Get to sick bay.
The spiral corridor at the heart of the Daedalus has never seemed so long, not even when Esther was dying. Noemi had her full strength then. A painful stitch wasn’t stabbing into her side. At least this time she knows where she’s going.
Every heavy thump of her feet on the floor panels means the Queen will know it, too.
She hears even heavier steps behind her—Not yet, not yet! Noemi thinks wildly. Even one backward glance is a risk, one she takes, and mercifully it’s only Ephraim catching up to her. “Tell me you’ve got a plan,” he gasps.
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Noemi doesn’t have the breath to respond. And now, in the not-far distance, she can hear the Queen following, running faster than either of the humans can.
But this is the last spiral, the final curve. Noemi keeps running full-out as the sick bay doors swish open, barely widening enough to admit her in time.
Ephraim skids in behind her. “So this is where you keep the blasters. Right? Right?”
She ignores him. Instead she studies the room and tries to figure out how to play this. Ephraim gives up on her and starts going through the medical supplies, maybe looking for a laser scalpel or something like that. It wouldn’t be bad to have a plan B.
The sick bay doors can be locked, but Noemi doesn’t bother. She gets into position one heartbeat before the Queen dashes in.
To Noemi’s astonishment, Ephraim tackles the Queen. Just tackles a warrior mech like it would do any good. He’s either brave or suicidal.
In either case, he’s out of luck, because the Queen quickly throws him aside so hard Ephraim hits the wall and staggers to his knees. Then she turns to look at Noemi, not in anger, but with blank, terrifying determination. “You have to come with me.”
“What do you need me for?” Noemi stalls, taking a step backward. “You already took Abel.”
“We have orders to examine you. To discover how you overrode the Abel’s core directives.” The Queen’s hands drip blood onto the floor as she comes closer, and Noemi skitters farther back. More blood runs down the Queen’s neck from the gap in her skull where the old components used to be, and a few droplets speckle the side of her face. “These questions must be answered before the Abel model can assume his rightful place.”
What’s that supposed to mean? Abel never said anything about a “rightful place,” and surely he would’ve bragged about it early on. But Noemi has no more time to think about it. The Queen’s in front of her, and her back’s to the wall, and it’s time to do this.
The Queen seizes Noemi in her gory hands. There’s no way Noemi could pull free, and the Queen’s braced herself too well to be pushed away. So Noemi grabs the Queen right back and swings her sideways, barely even twenty centimeters—
—which is enough to hurl her into a cryosleep pod.
The pod mechanism cycles automatically, immediately, its transparent steel cocoon enveloping the Queen in an instant. Even as the Queen begins pounding on the pod, trying to smash her way out, the initial clouds of greenish-gray gas begin to swirl. Noemi watches in sick fascination as the Queen’s movements slow, then stop. The mech slumps backward, in dormant mode, just as Abel had predicted.
Quickly Noemi pauses the cycle. She doesn’t want the Queen fully frozen, even if that would work on a mech. Unconscious will do.