Vortex Read Free Page B

whenever the aircraft made a banking turn. The small Equatorian moon was on the horizon (which meant I was still in Equatoria, however much it might have changed). Down below, whitecapped waves glistened with phosphorescence. We were flying over the sea, far from land.
    “What’s that song you’re humming?” I asked.
    Treya gave a little start, surprised to find me awake. She was young—I guessed twenty or twenty-five years old. Her eyes were attentive but cautious, as if she were subtly afraid of me. But she smiled at the question. “Just a tune…”
    A familiar tune. It was one of those lamentations in waltz time that had been so popular in the aftermath of the Spin. “Reminds me of a song I used to know. It was called…”
    “‘Après Nous.’”
    Yes. I had heard it in a bar in Venezuela when I was young and alone in the world. Not a bad tune, but I couldn’t imagine how it had survived ten centuries. “How do you know it?”
    “Well, that’s not easy to explain. In a way, I grew up with that song.”
    “Really? How old are you exactly?”
    Another smile. “Not as old as you, Turk Findley. I have some memories, though. That’s why they assigned me to you. I’m not just your nurse. I’m your translator, your guide.”
    “Then maybe you can explain—”
    “I can explain a lot, but not right now. You need to rest. I can give you something to make you sleep.”
    “I’ve been asleep.”
    “Is that how it felt when you were with the Hypotheticals—like sleep?”
    The question startled me. I knew I had been “with the Hypotheticals” in some sense, but I had no real memory of it. She appeared to know more about the subject than I did.
    “Perhaps the memories will come back,” she said.
    “Do you want to tell me what we’re running from?”
    She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
    “You all seemed in a hurry to get away from the desert.”
    “Well … this world has changed since you were taken up. Wars were fought here. The planet was radically depopulated and has never really recovered. In a way, a war is still being fought here.”
    As if to confirm this statement, the aircraft banked sharply. Treya gave the window a nervous glance. A burst of white light obscured the stars and lit the rolling waves below. I sat up to get a better view and I thought I saw something on the horizon as the flash faded, something like a distant continent or (because it was almost geometrically flat) an enormous ship. Then it was gone in the darkness.
    “Stay down,” she said. The aircraft went into an even steeper curve. She ducked into a chair attached to the nearest wall. More light bloomed in the window. “We’re out of range of their seagoing vessels, but their aircraft … It took us time to find you,” she said. “The others should be safe by now. The room will protect you if our vehicle is damaged, but you need to lie down.”
    It happened almost before the words were out of her mouth.
    *   *   *

    There were five aircraft (I learned later) in our formation. We were the last flight out of the Equatorian desert. The attack came sooner and more powerfully than expected: four escort craft went down protecting us, and after that we were defenseless.
    I remember Treya reaching for my hand. I wanted to ask her what kind of war this was; I wanted to ask her what she meant by “the others.” But there wasn’t time. Her grip was fiercely tight and her skin was cold. Then there was sudden heat and a blinding light, and we began to fall.

4.
    A combination of programmed emergency maneuvers and sheer luck carried our piece of the broken aircraft as far as the nearest island of Vox.
    Vox was a seagoing vessel—a ship, in the broadest sense—but it was much more than that word implies. Vox was an archipelago of floating islands, vastly larger than anything that had ever put to sea in my lifetime. It was a culture and a nation, a history and a religion. For nearly five hundred years it had sailed the