As I fly out the door, I look back at Nina Hartman standing behind her protective force field next to Morton and Doc Min. Their eyes are elsewhere, but Nina’s gaze latches onto mine. For a moment, time slows. Her mouth pops open in surprise, then settles into sadness. I expect her to point at me, to sound the alarm, but when I continue through the door and out of the ship, Nina says nothing.
38
I think we allhave moments in our lives when things become really clear. It’s like someone shuts off the music, and suddenly the silence is so loud you can hear it. But it’s pure. Stripped of all the noise. All the bullshit.
I haven’t always made the right choices. I’ve let hurt color my thinking, blamed others for my mistakes, lost my way a time or two. But the silence is loud now, and I can look back and see things clearly. The people I love. The friends I’ve made. The times when I showed courage instead of fear. My life hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been full. I think I did okay.
I climb into Caspen’s rover. The keys swing slightly where they’re still stuffed into the ignition. I give them a crank, rev the gas, and look back exactly once. From here, you’d never know a firefight was happening inside the Determinists’ A-Line freighter. You’d never know my heart is still in there, with a man who challenged me to do better and be better. That it’s bleeding.
The landscape from here to Mount Kilmon is overgrown, but the rover makes easy work of it. I speed forward, headlong, a little madcap, heedless to all the pits and rocks.Get’cha cartwheels in good use,I think. I wish Caspen could see me give the rover more gas. I think she’d be proud.
Mount Kilmon quickly expands on the horizon. You’d think a day like this should be stormy and gray, but the sky is actually this really gorgeous blue. The kind Venthros is known for, a sky that makes you feel like you could fall into it if you just flung your arms out wide enough. I’m glad to see it. One last time.
I recall the conversation Master Ira and I had on Purvuva. The questions I’d asked, and his answers. I didn’t think I’d need them. If today had gone the way we’d planned, I wouldn’t be doing this. But the neutralizer is out of reach, and millions of lives are at stake, and I don’t see another way. So slowly, piece by piece, I begin sketching a map in my head.You’ll come to a river,says the memory of Master Ira’s voice.To the east of it, there will be a path.I find the river, find the path. I jump from one landmark to the next, which guides me through Mount Kilmon’s foothills and up to its base.
The last of the grass fades away, and in its place there’s only rock, dark and craggy, like piles of black sponge. Some of the rock looks like sand under an ocean shoreline, imprinted with ripples. It’s made from the hardened lava of previous eruptions.
It’s not difficult, given the Master’s instructions, to find the tunnel. It’s bigger than I expected, boring straight into the side of the volcano. Dark. Man-made. I flip on the rover’s lights and drive in.
The path is smooth and wide. Quiet. The deeper I go, the colder it gets, which is odd—I thought, given the impending eruption, it’d be hot in here. Soon, the air starts to change. I rummage through one of the rover’s side compartments until I find what I’m looking for: a Legion-issue MeshGuard mask and oxygen hookup. I thread the restraining strap around the back of my head, get the mask fitted over my mouth. The meter says the tank is low on oxygen. It won’t last me long. But then, I guess it doesn’t need to.
Here’s the thing about knowing you’re going to die: Your brain does everything it can to deny it. There are moments when your mind kind of skips, and you forget. That’s what’s happening to me right now. I keep forgetting this isn’t just another mission. After, I won’t get to walk away.
The disassociation starts midway through the tunnel. I take the rover asfar as it will go, until the path is too narrow, then hop out. My footsteps are like a prerecorded soundtrack, and nothing feels quite real. I imagine I’m watching one of Jester’s documentaries. The story of someone else’s life. I guess I can be glad. I think if I really felt this—felt it fully—I wouldn’t be brave enough to see this through.
Or maybe I would. Maybe I am. This is still bravery, isn’t it? Even if I’m afraid?
The silence is so loud.
I continue through the tunnel. It’s a straight path, and it’s still dark, no lava in sight, but it’s not cold anymore, either. The heat is really starting to build now. I can feel it press against my skin. I’m breaking a sweat. I wipe my eyes. Then the tunnel opens and widens into an enormous cavern.
The heat hits me like a wave. I choke on it. My ears are ringing, and it takes me a second to catch my bearings, blink away the pain. My oxygen tank is making straining noises with every inhale. The meter is blinking red.
Running through the cavern is a river of lava. The volcano still hasn’t erupted yet, but it’s getting close. Frothing red fire boils up from holes in the rock. Cools. Melts again with a fresh froth. It looks like an ocean of flames.
I spot the heat collector there on the other side of the cavern. It’s pretty big—about as tall as I am. Normal heat collectors don’t belong inside the volcano, but rather around its base. Someone dragged this one in here.
I walk up to the capsule and take a good look. I’m not familiar with the mechanisms of collectors, but I understand enough to know that the little red countdown timer inside the window isn’t normal. Six minutes to go, according to the clock, which is a lot less time than we’d originally planned. It looks like the collector doors have been rigged to spring open at the end of the countdown, to release the voroxide right as the volcano explodes. Not only will this make it look like Mount Kilmon is responsible for the gas, but the rush of air and heat will help ensure the poison spreads.
Six minutes. I know we lost a lot of time in that firefight, but if we’dplanned on stealing the neutralizer and releasing it into the air across the planet, we’d still be way behind schedule. It feels like a blow, though of course it doesn’t matter now.
It’s so hot in here. So hot. I pull on a pair of goggles, and when I do, the headset connected to my oxygen mask makes a static noise. I get my hands on the collector. Even through my gloves, it burns.
I hope this works.
Lament will never forgive me if it doesn’t.
He probably won’t forgive me anyway.
And then, like the cosmos can hear my thoughts and feels the need to interfere, my headset signal clicks on.
“Hartman?” That’s Lament’s voice, crackling through the earpiece. “Can you hear me?”
The sound of him is almost my undoing. I have to try twice to get out, “Lament?”
He makes a noise I can’t even describe. I’ve got my hands on the heat collector, and, shit, I can feel my skin starting to blister.
“Fucking hell, Hartman.” His voice breaks over the headset. “You stole Caspen’s rover? You seriously did that? I told you already, the voroxide—”
