In Heaven and Earth by Amy Rae Durreson Page A

ansible
installation?”
    “ Sure, it’s
just round the outer curve of the asteroid. What’s going
on?”
    Reuben ignored him to tap
for a com. “Captain, you there?”
    “ Awake already,
Dr Cooper?”
    “ Vairya has
just informed me that a ship from Old Earth is currently docked on
Caelestia.”
    Meili gasped and Eskil
whipped round to stare at him, blanching.
    “ Get that
damned drone out to confirm it!” Reuben snapped at him.
“Captain?”
    Chanthavy sounded shaken.
“Do you believe him, Dr Cooper? Old Earth has no spaceflight
capability. It was all destroyed.”
    “ They’ve had
two hundred years to invent some,” Reuben pointed out. “He
believes. He claims to have activated the city’s self-destruction
protocol.”
    “ Destroy the
city?” Meili interrupted. “Is he mad?”
    “ Given the
alternative,” Reuben said grimly, thinking of Vairya’s laughter, “I
damn well hope so. He uploaded their personalities, captain. Every
one of them who was connected to the net is now saved to his
memory.”
    “ No wonder it
was damaged,” Eskil said. “Drone’s out, but it will take a few
minutes to get into position.”
    “ We need
definite confirmation before I inform Sirius,” Chanthavy said, her
voice steadying. “On this, of all things, we cannot cry
wolf.”
    Meili strode
over to the wall. “ Juniper , patch into the city net and
show me the morgue in the city hall.” To Reuben, she said, “That’s
where we’ve been moving the bodies.”
    A viewscreen opened up
slowly, showing the shadowy interior of a great hall. Bodies lay
across the floor in neat rows, bagged and numbered.
    Reuben had always thought
body bags looked too close to rubbish sacks, as if taunting the
survivors with what they lost. These, however, looked like nothing
he had ever seen before.
    They were transparent and
gleaming, as if the floor had been covered with swells of glass. In
the dim light, he could only see the barest impression of familiar
shapes: the curve of a jaw, a swirling pattern which might have
been loose hair, the ridges of fingers. As they watched, the walls
of the hall began to change, solid pseudo-oak shimmering and fading
as it transformed.
    “ Oh, god,”
Meili whispered. “Oh, god, it’s true.”
    “ Drone’s in
place,” Eskil whispered. “Visuals on screen.”
    A second window opened
up, showing the rocky underside of the city. Here too the light of
the local sun blazed off streaks of diamond. The remains of a ship
were smeared across the rocks, also diamond, except in the places
where a purple haze swirled and bubbled through the
wreckage.
    “ I think that’s
a quantum disruptor warhead,” Eskil said, sounding impressed.
“Someone certainly tried to blow the shit out of them.”
    “ Didn’t
succeed, did they?” Meili said harshly. “Captain, are you getting
all this?”
    “ Yes,”
Chanthavy said quietly. “I’m contacting High Command
now.”
    “ We were all
down there,” Meili said, her fists clenching and her words coming
fast. “We all touched those bodies.”
    “ You were in
suits,” Eskil said.
    “ It doesn’t
matter, not with nanites! We could all be next and he’s almost
certainly infected!” She pointed at Vairya.
    “ And?” Reuben
asked, moving to stand between her and the unconscious
cyborg.
    She stared at him, and
then her anger faded to horror. “And nothing! What did you
think—we’re not all barbarians, Cooper.”
    “ Stop it!”
Eskil said before Reuben could respond. “Just stop it! Stop
fighting!” His voice cracked a little.
    Meili took a sharp
breath, but didn’t say anything. Reuben reached out and squeezed
Eskil’s shoulder, trying to keep it gentle.
    “ They’ll send
help,” he said, trying to inject some certainty into his voice.
He’d talked nervous recruits through a battle before. He knew how
to lie convincingly, for all he hadn’t needed to bother for years.
“For now, let’s get out of here. I’m starving. Whose turn is it