Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten

Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten - Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Don Andrews reached the cathedral first, entering through the side door. All was quiet on the floor. In the one lit area, a hissing noise disturbed him. He looked up at the pillar. Judy was filling the spheres with air. She was destroying them.

Don Andrews took off at a run. There was still time. They could be saved.

Judy saw the tiny figure move across her dresser top. It was shouting something. Like a thing imagined, she came down. Silently against the great inertia, the huge gray claw descended out of the shadows. It caught Don Andrews unaware and lifted him through the toppling machinery. And then the claw swung back, swiping through the spheres, like a knife through caviar, systematically destroying the eggs of the Culminate.

Tarni had responded like Don Andrews to Judy's departure, and left the observation porch only seconds later. Now she arrived, and pulled back unobserved, to cower in the doorway. She could not see Don Andrews anywhere. The claw swung in all directions, and finally crashed into the pillar itself. Judy's station tilted crazily, but did not topple. As if a nerve had been severed, all action ceased.

The destruction of the cathedral was complete. Smoking rubble was strewn across the floor. Tarni stepped out of her crevice, and peered at the top of the pillar. Finally, Judy appeared, and descended the wavering spiral ladder to the cathedral floor.

There Tarni lost sight of her for just a moment, and was immobilized by indecision. The direction Judy had chosen was unclear. Suddenly a door open, and it was too late. Judy stood at the tunnel to the ferry port.

"Judy!" Tarni screamed, "Wait!"

The older woman turned, and spoke with strange serenity. "I'm going to destroy it, Tarni. What I believed was inspiration was implanted in me. I thought that we were making something beautiful, together, but he lied to me. The Culminate already exists, and Don Andrews tricked me into doing its bidding. He would even have used me to give birth to its children!" Her voice grew even quieter. "It was the Culminate he loved, not me."

Judy paused for a moment. But before Tarni could say a word, Backdoor's chief engineer turned with half a smile and gently said, "Goodbye."

Tarni ran, stumbling across the floor to where Judy had vanished, but the trolley to the ferry port was already blinking far up the tracks.

There was only one car, so Tarni ran up the tunnel, the empty concrete echoing her footsteps. She ran until her lungs ached.

"Judy!" she screamed. It hurt to scream. The rumbles overhead could only mean one thing, the ferry was disengaging from Backdoor, preparing to take off.

It wasn't far, but all uphill. A green light flashed just up ahead, where the tunnel stopped and the ferry began. The door was closing when she reached it. Tarni leaned on the bar as it flashed red and locked.

The ferry had no weapons. Judy could try to destroy the Culminate by colliding with it, but the Culminate was just too big. Her only choice would be to self-destruct beside it. Tarni stood for a moment, and then slumped down onto the concrete floor, exhausted. On the other side of the door, the engines of Backdoor's only ferry roared into silence.

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