Grail - By Elizabeth Bear Page 0,15

out to brush Perceval’s, first back to back and then clasping fingers. “You are not alone.”

Perceval sat up, hunching forward over her hollow belly, and disentangled her fingers from her mother’s. She hugged her knees tight and pulled her forehead almost down to her shins. “Sometimes I wish I were.”

She wasn’t expecting Caitlin’s bark of laughter. One of the joys of adulthood was dealing with her mother as a peer, as an ally and a friend.

“Sir Perceval,” Caitlin said, invoking a title Perceval had not heard often since she first sat in the Captain’s chair. From the change in her voice and the rustle of grass, Perceval knew that Caitlin sat up, too. “You have never stopped being a knight-errant, my dear. Did you go looking for her?”

Did you go looking for Rien’s remains in Nova? was what Caitlin meant. Had Perceval sieved through the Angel’s personality for the fragments that had once been Rien, to reassemble them into some parody of her beloved, much as Cynric was—according to Tristen—a sort of parody of what she once had been?

Perceval wasn’t sure if she shook her head slightly or if it was a pressure change that ruffled her hair. She tossed it back, swinging herself again into a sitting position, and shook the brown locks down her shoulders like a snapped-out banner. “I would not have liked what I found.”

“Wise child,” Caitlin said, and kissed her on the top of the head.

Perceval exhaled a breath she did not remember holding. But before she could take in another, Nova’s voice broke the stillness and insect-drone of the meadow. The words sounded to Perceval’s inner and outer ears simultaneously.

“Captain, Chief Engineer. Five intruders have accessed the Bridge corridor. I have called for support and await your recommendation.”

Perceval found herself on her feet, her mother beside her. “How did intruders penetrate this far? Nova, the approaches are full of your colony corona.”

“Unknown,” Nova said.

Caitlin drew out her unblade. In the loudness of Perceval’s heart, it made no sound at all. Her voice rang clean across the Bridge, however, just as if more than one ear must hear her commands. “For any defensive technology, there is an equal and opposite countermeasure.”

“Great,” Perceval said. “They’ve hacked through it somehow. Nova, my armor please?”

The suit was in the Bridge closet. It was a trivial matter for Nova to disassemble it there and reassemble the component molecules in their proper configurations around Perceval while Perceval held her breath and stilled her movements. Caitlin’s was a little more complex, as she’d left the physical suit in Engineering, so the Angel must pattern it and reconstitute it from available materials here.

“Are they attempting to broach the Bridge?” Perceval asked, as Caitlin’s vermilion-and-gold armor began to take shape around her.

“Negative,” Nova answered. “They are trying to break into the case containing the relic Bible in the corridor. Tristen is inbound with security. He estimates he will be able to relieve your position in under ninety seconds, and advises you to ‘sit tight and not take any chances.’ ”

Through both faceplates, Caitlin’s gaze caught on Perceval’s. Caitlin said, “Who the hell wants to steal an old book?”

“It’s more than an old book, Mother.” Perceval knew how feral the grin that curved her lips must appear, and reveled in it. “Are we listening to Tristen?”

Caitlin grinned back. “Do we ever?”

They burst through the Bridge door like eager angels, emerging into a functional vacuum. Tristen’s once-weapon Charity was brandished high in Caitlin’s hand. Perceval—out of respect for the unblade—ran three steps behind, firing darts that could pierce even armor if they struck a joint or soft spot squarely. Two of the invaders—gray-armored, their colors blanked and their visors fogged to hide their features—spun to return fire. The other three slipped aside, muscling the ancient Bible’s nitrogen-filled case through a fuse-edged hole in the bulkhead that led straight into the embrace of the Enemy.

Perceval went right; Caitlin went left. Perceval lunged into the niche where the Bible’s case had until so recently been set, hopping up on its barren stand like a crouched gargoyle. Caitlin flattened herself behind a bulge in the bulkhead through which environmental pipes ran.

Perceval hoped that the raiders were using ammunition that would not punch holes in her ship—or more and worse holes than they had already punched.

Well, Perceval thought, that explains the vacuum. It doesn’t explain how they got past Nova, though.

There had been problems with the Angels and their areas of awareness before, but those difficulties were long in