‘On a ship that small?’ Olli demanded.
‘Hegemony tech is good.’ Solace shrugged. ‘Like I say, can’t be sure . . .’
‘And I’m wondering why it even matters, given they’re so far ahead of us,’ Rollo growled. By the time the refitted Dark Joan had cleared the planet, the Harvest’s interceptor had a commanding lead.
‘Working on it.’ Idris had the maths at his fingertips, making quick and dirty calculations upon which nobody should stake a ship-worth of lives. ‘Almost there.’
‘My misbegotten son,’ Rollo rumbled in his ear, ‘I know you magicians do not like to let lesser mortals see how the trick is done. But maybe, this one time, you could show what’s up your sleeve, see right?’
‘Any of you ever hear the term “stutter-jump”？’ Idris asked them.
‘Oh.’ Solace had, of course. Nobody else. It wasn’t a thing sane people did with a gravity drive.
And while he was thinking that, all the maths came together, perfect as a gemstone. Yes, that will do nicely. Except ‘nicely’ was absolutely not the right word.
‘You all need to hang on to something. Now. Not each other. Hang on and keep still.’
‘Idris?’ Solace actually sounded worried. I scared a Partheni. Something to cross off the life list.
‘Just close your eyes and . . . don’t worry. We’re going to drop out of the real for a very short period of time.’ He was mortified to discover that a tiny sliver of him was enjoying itself.
‘Oh, no, no, no,’ Rollo started, but Idris had already set the gravitic drives into motion, shunting the ship into unspace. In the split second before they dropped he heard everyone start to shout at him. Then the shouts were gone and so were they. Nothing but utter quiet came from the empty space behind him, alone as he was in the little Partheni ship. It’s like a foreign country. They do things different here.
Then he was already bringing them out again, a heartbeat later. And even in that instant he felt something flowing up from the appalling abyss to infest that vacancy his friends had left.
He remembered Berlenhof. He’d been on the Partheni launch Pythoness, like the Dark Joan writ large. They’d been crippled by the Architect, the surviving crew gamely discharging their weapons at the vast crystalline spears of the enemy. He’d tried to drag them away from the Architect’s path, feeling its invisible grasp seeking to finish them off. In desperation, wanting to live, he had engaged the drive and just ripped the entire broken vessel into unspace. Even as he did it, he was regretting it, knowing it was a terrible idea. He tore them free, back to the real, fully expecting to find the Architect right there again, descending upon them. Except they had been half the distance back towards Berlenhof and clear of the enemy. He’d looked about the deck of profoundly shocked women, some doubled over, others clutching their heads at the shock of sudden transit. But alive, all of them. And if he accomplished no more than that at least he’d saved them, along with himself. Only an Intermediary’s innate feel for the screwed-up spatial relationships involved had made it possible.
Idris was an old Int now, perhaps the oldest. Old but never tired of running. Only this time he was running towards. In the eyeblink after they ceased to objectively exist in the physical universe, they were back again. The Harvest interceptor was far behind them, still hauling its bulk across the intervening space the old-fashioned way. And ahead of them was their goal – the Vulture and its prey.
From behind came a chorus of complaints. Kris choking, the staccato stridulation of Kittering making his displeasure known. Let them think on what they’d just experienced, and remember it next time they had a two-day crossing with only him awake.
‘Never do that again, you famie bastard,’ Rollo hissed in his ear. ‘I will cut your throat one of these fine days.’ And he didn’t mean it, probably, but there was still a jagged edge to the captain’s voice. Possibly Rollo was one of those people who reacted spectacularly badly to unspace. Certainly he’d always made sure he was abed before any regular transit.
Idris found he didn’t have room to be contrite just then. It had worked. ‘We’re coming in. Five minutes. Need to be quick.’
‘Screw you, Idris,’ Olli spat, voice shaking, but she was already working, trying to establish a link to the Vulture’s systems. ‘They’re still rebooting the computer. No higher systems up yet.’
There was a comms ping from the console. ‘Hailing us,’ Idris noted.