House of the Wolf by M. K. Wren

Author:M. K. Wren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION/Science Fiction/General
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2013-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

The pumps had finally succeeded in clearing away the water, but at the moment that was hard to ascertain. Those parts of the floor that weren’t occupied with ships and machines were filled with people, including the ambulatory wounded.

Emeric Garris stood at the deck railing, listening to the ADCon frequency on his headset. Dyce and M’Kim were waiting near him. Venturi had been here, too, but a minute ago departed suddenly with a monosyllabic explanation.

“SI. Willie says Pri-One.”

Garris only nodded absently. He was thinking about Andreas. To see Andreas again, alive, here where he belonged—

An echoing clank, a rush of air and water. Phoenix One was coming in. A towcrew hurried toward the tunnel, shouting warnings to the crowd to make room. That blue-uniformed crowd. Garris felt the weight of his own uniform, and he wanted to strip it off on the spot.

The ship emerged into the hangar, and the only sounds in the great vault were mechanical; cables shooting out, thudding home, towcars whining, lock gates closing, pumps thumping, the ship’s generators rumbling. She came to a stop a short distance beyond the tunnel, turned with her side and lock toward the comcenter.

The crowd shifted, everyone vying for position to see the lock. Yet they were so quiet. Garris studied the faces he could see, trying to understand that silence. Shock was part of it, but beyond that he read the aching hope he’d first seen on M’Kim’s and Dyce’s faces.

The tongue of the boarding ramp slid out as the lock opened. A whispering swept through the waiting crowd. Three men were standing in the lock.

One of them Garris didn’t recognize at first. It had been nearly five years since he met Jael the Outsider as a new recruit here in Fina. But he spared Jael little attention now, and he stayed a pace behind the others as they descended the ramp.

Andreas—there was Andreas. . . .

Garris held on to the railing, putting down the urge to weep or laugh or shout aloud. Yet he found his attention drawn to Alex Ransom. He watched him, forgetting to breathe.

He was wearing an ordinary slacsuit; Garris noted that because it came as a surprise. His first impression was of a cloak and dress boots, and he was reminded of the night Alex Ransom first came to Fina. It had struck him then, too, that aristocratic bearing that fell short of arrogance only because of the years and generations of stringent discipline behind it.

The blue-clad crowd stirred and shifted, and finally wonder found expression; finally the pendant silence was washed away in a flood of voices, and the vault that had echoed in the last few hours with the clangor of disaster, reverberated with the laughter and accents of hope.

There were no concerted cheers from this crowd, only a formless, continuous clamor, intensely individual articulations of joy and relief, an ultimate, exhaustive resolution. It was a long time before Alex and Andreas could make their way through the crowd to the deck, and they seemed in no hurry.

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