Chapter 78: The Western Station

Teren discovered how long she had been gone over breakfast.

Nobody had intended it that way.

Johanna had prepared a quiet room. Aramaeis had offered to sit with her. Eve had assembled what they could verify into a short account, leaving out the things that remained uncertain.

But a maintenance officer passed through the mess carrying a replacement filter.

Teren recognized the manufacturer’s mark.

“My brother worked there,” she said.

The officer smiled politely.

Then hesitated.

It was a small hesitation.

Enough.

Teren set down her spoon.

“When?”

The officer looked toward Dinraal.

Teren did too.

“When did they close?”

Dinraal put his cup down.

“Let’s sit somewhere quieter.”

“No.”

She had not raised her voice.

“I would like you to answer me here.”

So he did.

He told her what they knew about the manufacturer, and then what the archive dates meant for the refuge. He explained that their nineteen days had passed while generations lived outside.

By the time he finished, the maintenance officer had quietly withdrawn.

Teren stared at her bowl.

Beside her, the other surviving engineer who had come to breakfast sat with both hands flat on the table.

Neither spoke.

Dinraal remained with them.

After a while, Teren asked, “Is there anything left?”

“Of your home?”

“Of anything I know.”

He could have mentioned the arc.

The machinery.

The old ships held in its broken arms.

Instead, he looked toward Aramaeis, who had stopped in the doorway.

His uncle came over without being called.

Teren studied his face.

For the first time since her rescue, she seemed to see more than the uniform and the silver.

“You were there,” she said.

“Yes.”

“How did you bear it?”

Aramaeis sat beside her.

“Poorly, sometimes.”

She pressed her lips together.

He waited.

Eventually, she reached for her spoon again.

Her hand shook too much to use it.

Aramaeis moved the bowl closer so she would not have to reach.

The allied escorts arrived two days later.

They brought towing craft, pressure shelters, replacement crews, and an argument about where to unload everything.

Alexander settled the argument by assigning each captain a berth before anyone could finish explaining why another arrangement would be better.

Enna approved.

“He’s learning.”

Dinraal stood beside her in the hangar while an enormous crate descended from a cargo lift.

“What’s that?”

“A bearing.”

“For the western actuator?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the crate again.

It was taller than he was.

“I thought we were repairing the existing one.”

“We are. This is for when repairing it becomes an unreasonable ambition.”

Gilgamesh walked around the crate, studying the lifting points.

Enna caught his expression.

“No.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You were about to ask whether you could carry it.”

“I was about to ask where you wanted it.”

She considered him.

Then pointed toward a reinforced section of deck.

“Over there. Slowly.”

Gilgamesh smiled.

Dinraal watched him lift the crate.

“Does that ever stop being strange?”

Enna checked her inventory.

“Only when it’s useful.”

The reinforcements changed more than the amount of equipment aboard.

For the first time, Alexander could assign separate crews to inspection, evacuation, and defense without using the same exhausted people for all three.

The outer berths would no longer be approached one ship at a time.

Four towing teams began rehearsing simultaneous releases.

Medical staff prepared receiving compartments across three vessels.

Rescued workers marked passages they had used and places they had been forbidden to enter. They disagreed, corrected one another, and occasionally discovered that two different names referred to the same corridor.

Pell arrived with Nemi and a hand-drawn map.

Asha reached for a scanner.

Nemi held the paper back.

“The red marks are where we actually went. The blue ones are what people told us.”

Asha lowered the scanner.

“Thank you.”

“And that isn’t a passage.”

She pointed to a narrow line near the lower edge.

“What is it?”

“A crack.”

“How large?”

“Large enough that someone will mistake it for a passage.”

Enna took a pen.

Teren did not attend the first planning session.

She sent her slate.

On it, she had corrected three dimensions and added a note beside the western station’s emergency entrance.

Hinge opens toward the operator. Do not stand in front of it.

Dinraal found her later in the observation compartment.

She was watching a transport prepare to leave.

“Your notes were useful.”

“I remembered something after.”

He waited.

“The lower access ladder has a broken fourth rung.”

“We’ll mark it.”

For a moment, she seemed relieved to have something simple to give him.

Then she looked down at her hands.

“I said I would go.”

“You said you would help.”

“I know the station.”

“You’ve already helped us find the route.”

Her mouth tightened.

Dinraal sat at the other end of the bench.

Below the window, a towing craft released its docking clamps.

Teren watched it move away.

“I thought if I went back, it might feel like yesterday again.”

He said nothing.

“It’s foolish.”

“No.”

She looked toward him.

“I don’t think it would work,” he said. “But I understand wanting it.”

Her eyes filled.

She wiped them with the heel of her hand, impatiently.

“Tell your engineer the spindle catches before the final turn. She must lift it slightly.”

“I will.”

“And if she forces it, she’ll break the selector.”

“I’ll make certain she knows.”

Teren gave a faint, exhausted smile.

“She’ll hate that.”

“She usually prefers knowing which things she’s allowed to break.”

The western station had windows.

Dinraal had not expected that.

From the maintenance route beneath the actuator, he could see a narrow band of glass looking outward across the arc.

A place for someone to stand during a quiet watch.

Now the windows were dark.

“Inspection team at the entrance,” Isolde reported.

Alexander acknowledged from the escort holding beyond the worst of the distortion.

Their clocks remained close enough to work.

Asha and Eve had marked the route in segments, each with its own limit. The refuge’s extreme boundary lay farther below. Here, time still shifted, but gradually enough that the recovery craft could track them.

Aramaeis reached the emergency hatch.

It opened toward him.

He stepped aside before releasing the hinge.

Enna glanced at Dinraal.

“Useful notes.”

Inside, the station smelled of cold metal and old insulation.

Their lights crossed three empty workstations.

A cup remained in a holder beside one console.

Beyond it, pale strands had grown through the ventilation grille, spread down the wall, and stopped at an open control housing.

Something had tried very hard to reach what Teren had removed.

Enna set down the spindle.

“First, we cut every external command connection.”

A junior engineer knelt beside the wall panel.

Aramaeis moved to the opposite side.

Dinraal and Isolde took the two entrances.

Nobody touched the main console.

The first wire they severed carried no current.

Neither did the second.

The third lit the room.

Dinraal turned.

Every display had come on at once.

Lines of unfamiliar text moved across them.

Then the language changed.

WESTERN COMMAND RESTORED.

Enna pulled her hands out of the housing.

“I have restored absolutely nothing.”

A voice came from the ceiling.

“Engineering crew, remain at your stations.”

Teren’s voice.

Dinraal felt his silver rise along his neck.

The recording continued.

“Disregard the pressure warnings. The eastern corridor remains passable.”

Aramaeis looked toward the nearest speaker.

“Old evacuation traffic.”

“Don’t answer it,” Isolde said.

The voice repeated.

Same breath.

Same small catch before the word pressure.

Enna traced a narrow strand beneath the severed cable.

“There.”

Pale material had grown through the insulation, bridging one disconnected circuit to another.

She cut out the entire section.

The displays went dark.

For several seconds, the only sound was the air moving through their suits.

Then something struck the hatch behind Dinraal.

Once.

Hard.

Alexander’s voice came over the independent line.

“Movement along the service spine. Two groups approaching.”

“How long?” Enna asked.

“Less than four minutes.”

She looked at the open console.

“I need six.”

Isolde formed a blade.

“Then work.”

The attendants came through the lower passage first.

Dinraal saw their lights before their bodies.

Three figures moved between the supports, too quickly for the awkward shapes they had made of themselves. Pale joints bent around old pressure suits. One still wore an identification tag against its chest.

He stepped into the passage.

The first struck his shield hard enough to drive him back a pace.

He gave ground deliberately, drawing it clear of the second.

Isolde came through the side opening and cut its supporting limbs.

It fell against the wall.

Dinraal caught the second with a silver band across its shoulders and drove it into the third.

Behind him, Gilgamesh reached the passage.

“Do you need this corridor?”

“Yes,” Dinraal said.

“All of it?”

“The walls would be helpful.”

Gilgamesh sighed and shortened the hammer forming in his hands.

They fought in the confined space while Enna worked.

There was no room for grand movements.

Dinraal blocked, turned, and struck.

Isolde cut reaching filaments before they touched the independent power cable.

Gilgamesh held the narrowest point, forcing the attendants to come at him one at a time.

Then the station moved.

Not far.

Enough that the floor rose beneath Dinraal’s boots.

A deep groan traveled through the structure.

“Actuator load increasing,” Eve warned.

Enna looked up from the console.

“I haven’t engaged it.”

“It’s pulling against you,” Asha said.

The Questioner had felt the interruption.

Now the machinery around the station was beginning to bend.

“Spindle seated,” Enna said.

“Final turn?” Aramaeis asked.

“Lifting it first.”

A solid mechanical sound came through the room.

The console remained dark.

Enna checked her isolated supply.

Then she turned a separate handle beneath the housing.

One small lamp illuminated.

No greeting.

No declaration that command had returned.

Just a light beside a pressure gauge.

She smiled.

“There you are.”

The station shuddered again.

Dinraal drove the last attendant back through the hatch.

“Enna.”

“Local brakes are available.”

“Use them.”

“If I lock the wrong assembly, the load transfers through the inhabited berths.”

She studied the gauges.

The junior engineer called readings from the opposite panel.

Aramaeis stood beside the manual cutout.

Outside, one of the pale growths across the window began to tighten.

The glass cracked.

Isolde spread silver across the pane.

“Choose soon.”

Enna followed the pressure lines with one finger.

Then she pulled the smaller of two levers.

The station lurched.

Somewhere beyond the wall, an enormous mechanism struck its stop.

The pressure gauge fell.

The cracking glass went still beneath Isolde’s hand.

“Western brake engaged,” Enna said.

Eve’s voice sharpened.

“Confirmed. The outer arm has stopped moving.”

Alexander came on immediately.

“Towing teams, begin release.”

Dinraal had seen the rehearsal.

He had watched the markers separate on a clean projection.

The real thing was slower.

A freighter turned unevenly as its tug took the load. A crew transport remained caught for twelve terrible seconds before its final clamp released. Two smaller craft moved together inside a pressure shelter built around their damaged docking collars.

At the station window, Isolde watched the first engine flare.

“One clear.”

Aramaeis called the second.

Then the third.

They had taken control of only one brake.

It was enough to hold the service arm steady while other people did the work.

Dinraal pressed his shield against the hatch as something heavy struck from outside.

The metal bowed.

Gilgamesh braced beside him.

“How many?”

“Three clear,” Dinraal said.

“I meant outside.”

“I’m trying not to count.”

Another impact drove the hatch inward.

Silver spread across its frame.

Enna opened the local load recorder.

“Fourth ship still attached.”

Alexander answered.

“We see it.”

The last vessel was a squat workshop transport.

Its tug had stopped pulling.

On the external feed, a figure moved beneath its stern.

One of the allied engineers.

A pale line stretched from the ship into the arc.

Dinraal recognized the problem.

“We had the same connection at the tender. It may be wrapped around a live pipe.”

“Team knows,” Alexander said.

Dinraal looked toward the maintenance exit.

He could reach them.

Perhaps quickly enough.

Isolde saw him turn.

“The hatch,” she said.

He stopped.

The engineer beneath the transport fixed a patch over the hull.

Another figure joined them.

Their cutting light flashed.

Dinraal held his position.

The hatch shook against his shoulder.

Then the final ship moved.

“Four clear,” Alexander said. “All towing teams withdrawing.”

Dinraal let out a breath.

The allied engineer raised one arm toward the recovery craft.

They had managed without him.

He was glad enough that it hurt.

They left the western station under its own mechanical control.

The brake remained engaged.

The spindle came out with Enna.

Before withdrawing, Aramaeis closed the inner isolation door and used the local seal, the same kind Ilyra had held at her station.

The pale growth at the window flattened against the barrier.

It could reach the walls.

It could strike them.

It could no longer send instructions through a wire that ended in Enna’s tool bag.

At the recovery craft, Alexander received their reports.

Four vessels freed.

Two hundred and six people aboard.

One towing engineer with a broken arm.

No one missing.

The western actuator had a damaged bearing, a warped guide, and a drive assembly that still responded to local controls.

Repairable.

Dinraal stood behind Enna as she transmitted the findings.

For once, she did not qualify the word.

Repairable.

Teren met them at the hangar.

She had changed out of her old uniform.

Someone had found her a plain gray shirt and trousers. The sleeves were slightly too long.

Enna handed over the spindle.

Teren examined the selector.

“You didn’t force it.”

“I was threatened in advance.”

“Did the brake hold?”

“Yes.”

Teren looked toward the returning crews.

“And the ships?”

“Four.”

For a moment, she seemed unable to understand the number.

Then she sat down on a cargo case.

Enna lowered herself beside her.

Neither spoke.

Dinraal and Isolde continued toward the medical compartment.

At its entrance, a young towing engineer sat with his injured arm supported against his chest.

He recognized Dinraal and tried to rise.

Johanna pushed him gently back down.

“Absolutely not.”

Dinraal crouched beside his chair.

“That was good work out there.”

The young man glanced toward Isolde, then back at him.

“I thought you might come.”

Dinraal smiled faintly.

“So did I.”

“What stopped you?”

“My wife reminded me I was holding a door.”

The engineer laughed.

Then winced.

Johanna gave Dinraal a look.

He stood.

“We’ll let you rest.”

Later, Isolde found him in their quarters with a recorder on the table.

“Message home?”

He nodded.

“I’ve done the report. I’m trying to think of something that isn’t the report.”

She sat beside him.

“Tell them we’re well.”

“They’ll think we always say that.”

“We do usually say that.”

“Even when it’s only partly true.”

Isolde considered him.

Then she reached over and switched on the recorder.

“The western station is secure,” she said. “Enna is pleased with the machinery, which I think means we’ve accomplished something remarkable.”

Dinraal laughed.

She glanced at him.

“We helped free four more ships today. Other crews did most of the difficult work. Dinraal stayed where he was needed.”

“Are you reporting my behavior?”

“Yes.”

She took his hand beneath the table.

“We miss you. We miss the house. I would particularly like a meal at a table that isn’t attached to the floor.”

“Rhiannon will send a table.”

“Then tell her not to.”

Dinraal leaned toward the recorder.

“Please don’t send a table.”

They finished the message together.

Afterward, Isolde rested her head against his shoulder.

Beyond the wall, the ship carried on with the ordinary sounds of a busy watch.

Footsteps.

A trolley.

Someone laughing too loudly outside the lift.

Dinraal turned her ring gently with his thumb.

“We’re getting somewhere.”

“Yes.”

“I can almost see how we do it now.”

She lifted her head.

“Close it?”

“And leave.”

Her expression softened.

He looked toward the small recorder, with their message waiting to be carried home.

“Both,” he said.

Isolde kissed him.

Then she drew him away from the table and toward the bed, leaving the plans where they were.