Free Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald Page A

The thing in the ice.
    Captain Anastasia pulled down the palari-pipe.
    “Mr. Sharkey, how close are you to cast off?”
    Sharkey's voice came through a shriek of ice wind.
    “Two more, Captain. ‘He casteth forth his ice like morsels, who can stand before his cold?’”
    “Spare me the word of the Dear, Mr. Sharkey. Inside now.”
    “There are still two—”
    “Cut a hole in the skin if you must, but I want you in now, Sharkey.”
    There was a dark eye in the heart of the coming ice storm. As it bore down on Everness , it grew in resolution, from shadow to the vague outline of a machine to something with ducted fan engines and artillery turrets and machine-gun pods and missile racks. What the photograph had failed to capture was the size of the thing. This was a battleship riding a cushion of air. This was a killing machine. He tried the JUMP command again. The button remained greyed out. Back down into the set-up menu. Everness trembled again to the strange vibration.
    “Mr. Mchynlyth, I need everything you have to the engines,” Captain Anastasia cut her engineer off before he could complain. Everett had learnt learned this about Mchynlyth: he would moan and gripe and complain and invent a thousand reasons why any request was unreasonable, illogical, impossible, but then he would deliver, every time. “Sen. Take us straight up.”
    “Bona, ma’am.” Sen swiveled the impeller-attitude control, turning the engine pods into lift mode, and pushed the power levers all the way to the end of the slot. “Power is at—”
    “I am aware of the power situation, Miss Sixsmyth.”
    Everness lifted by the nose. Two mooring lines held her down by the tail. Everett grabbed Dr. Quantum to stop it from sliding off the console. The deck tilted higher. Every centimeter of Everness 's two hundred meters creaked and strained.
    “Trying to code here!” Everett shouted. The airship shook again to another of the strange vibrations that seemed to emanate from deep inside the ice. Then the deck lurched with a jolt that knocked everyone from their feet and rolled the ship to the left. The right rear mooring line had snapped. Everness was still held to the ice by the single left rear line. Sen climbed back to the helm and tried to balance the lift and thrust controls to bring the ship on to an even keel.
    “Half the impellers is meese and the ballast's froze solid,” Sen hissed. Slowly, slowly, Everness rolled on to the horizontal. “Go on polone!” Sen yelled, playing the levers like a musical instrument. Everness strained at the remaining anchor line like an animal tugging at an ankle trap. The main communication board crackled.
    “Attention airship, attention airship.” The voice spoke in the oddly accented English of E2. It was not these people's native language, Everett remembered. There was no English language, there were no English people. They were a mixture of Moorish and Hispanic. Plenipotentiary Ibrim Hoj Kerrim—Everett always thought of him as an ally—had learned his English through an implant plugged directly into his brain. People who possessed the technologyto do that would have no difficulty destroying Everness. “We are targeting you with numerous and overpowering weapons systems. Land immediately, land immediately.” But you won't use them , Everett thought. You daren't risk destroying the Infundibulum . But they would know that theirs was an empty threat. They must have secret, smart ways of crippling an airship.
    “Are we there yet, Mr. Singh?” Captain Anastasia asked.
    A single button glowed at the center of Dr. Quantum's screen: this change requires a restart. “I'm rebooting the system.” My TV-Tropes moment , Everett thought as the application shut down and the screen went blank. The Last Minute System Reboot. Another jolt: the final line parting. Sen gave a small shriek as Everness climbed rapidly. Her hands danced over the board, trimming and stabilizing and balancing impellers.
    “Land