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  I stride for the periscope, but there's a sudden thrust from the Bathyscaphe's tail which yaws the whole ship on its nose, steepening our dive angle. I barely grab onto the periscope bars as my legs kick out with the new direction of gravity, throwing me forward.

  "Ray's come through for us," Doe shouts as she pulls out of the ladder chute, holding tight to the rungs. The ship rights itself gradually and I tilt back to the floor. "He's evacuated the trim hold, buying us buoyancy."

  "First tank of many," I shout back over the din of the siren, getting my feet under me. I imagine Ray deep below decks releasing great chambers of intensely pressurized ballast gas, which will drive us up faster and lighter than before. "Hold on to something." She goes to her Engine Order Telegraph bell, used to communicate orders to the decks below via a simple lever, and takes control.

  I kill the siren with a single command then splay the periscope's handle rests, slot my face into the glass eyelets and look out into the Molten Core.

  It's like looking into the belly of a sun. The grinding sound against the hull takes on shape as I gaze into the billowing magma of the mind. Every tremor corresponds to these swirling waves of red, yellow and orange as they radiate outward, driven by magnetic and gravometric forces of consciousness that are too huge to imagine.

  We're going hard against the tide. I sweep the periscope side to side, seeking the cause. What I'm looking at is a severe magma storm, dense enough to shred all of our three brick layers at once if a wave catches us at peak. The cooling systems to the inner hull will be nothing but a brief sizzle of ice in a volcano if I can't steer us through. At least there's no sign of the Lag; it looks like we're traveling too fast even for it.

  Reports ring in from all decks, called out by Doe. "Ti's jettisoned the broken screw. New one's yet to tooth to the engine."

  I feel the change in the patterns of liquid rock ahead. The buffeting gets more violent as we slow.

  "Tell her to make it bite now," I shout.

  Another trim tank vented by Ray sends us yawing wider, almost wrenching the periscope out of my hands. I lean in and watch a great yellow wreath of molten rock bubble up toward us, wondering if this will be the one to take us out.

  "So and La report the cooling's at maximum, beyond safeties," calls Doe, "in most places we've got a single layers of bricking left, the outer two are completely burned, and we're breached on several decks, with bulkheads barely standing. Ray's got three trim tanks left."

  "It's only getting hotter," I call back, "we need more-"

  The new engine screw bites, and I can't finish my sentence as the periscope punches me hard in the face. Stars erupt in darkness and Doe is tossed from her feet behind me.

  "Backwash, clearing the gunk," Doe shouts, getting to her feet. "Me, we have to move now."

  Blinking away the pain, I press my aching face back to the periscope and finally glimpse the dim outline of the Solid Core through the magma, like a fuzzy black island, visible in the scope's gamma sight.

  Any port in a storm.

  "Arc 23 degrees," I shout to Doe, "flanking speed, get us the hell through this."

  I hear her ring out the order on the Engine Order Telegraph, two bells for direction and three sharp rings for full steam ahead. The thrum vibrates up through the floor as Ti deep below decks drives the new screw beyond capacity.

  The sudden propulsion cavitates the magma ahead, and the thrust jerks me back from the periscope. Liquid rock bubbles and groans as we churn through it, moving too fast for the magma at the front to peel off, giving us a replacement heatproof layer for as long as the screw can take the pace.

  "Arc 25, Hail 47, Veer 306," I call out to Doe, each navigation met by a ringing of bells through the Engine Order Telegraph system, swerving us like a leaping fish between the densest points of the lava storm. I rattle out a long stream of minute corrections that may just be enough to spare our last few layers of brick insulation and get us through. The tower around me rings with the chime of the EOT bell as Doe relays to Ti, a high trilling melody over the deep bass thrum of the Molten Core.

  "Arc 23, lock it in," I finish then pull out of the periscope. We're almost to the surface and there are other things I have to do now to ensure this mission, whatever it is, will succeed. As I pull back another trim tank blows and jostles us slightly, lightening the load and speeding us on.

  I stride to the display bank and tap the dial for internal cabin pressure. It's coolest here at the top, hottest down where Ti is, and not long to go. There are streams of sweat pouring off Doe already, along with a flow of blood down her chin, shockingly bright against her bright white skin.

  "Bit my tongue on the last yaw," she says. "You should see your eyes, you look like a panda."

  My head aches, but there's no time. We have to get out before we burn up.

  "Call them all up," I say, "have Ray get Far. We'll breach the surface in T-minus ten and we need to be ready."

  She aye-ayes and starts relaying my message throughout the ship. I rub my eyes and stalk toward the captain's hutch. What the hell is in the Solid Core to make this journey worth it?

  B. HUTCH

  The hutch lies at the back of the conning tower, down a narrow corrider lined with racks of bulky concrete Extra Vehicular Activity suits, some of which have tumbled from their racks. Beyond them the hutch is a small space with a bolted-down desk and chair for the captain to read mission orders. Embedded in the walls and ceiling are hundreds of small metal lockers, each with its own keyplate and number.

  I stand in the middle and survey them. There must be five hundred in total.

  Mission orders. I rack my mind for some hint of which locker is for this mission, but they all feel familiar. I have the sense that behind every one is a memory of something I've already done or have yet to do, but I don't know which one is for right now.

  "Ray's here," Doe shouts over the grinding of the magma off our brick skin.

  "The third layer is failing everywhere," Ray shouts. "It's gonna be close."

  The ride gets rockier as we hit dregs of cooling rock near the surface, and I stare at the lockers. A mission to the Solid Core, where we've never been before, but for what? I look down at the yellow maze on my chest for clues. It looks like a schematic for a world, now that I think about it, with lines of magnetic and gravometric flow. There's also something underneath the suit, pressing against my chest. I peer down inside my armor and see a lump hanging around my neck on a leather cord. I fish it out and find a key, with a number inscribed on the side.

  47

  I find the corresponding locker wedged down in a corner. On my knees I slot the key it, turn, and the door opens. I slide out the long slim metal box within and set it on the table, unlatch the top clasp and open the lid.

  There's a thick mission dossier inside, flapped with vinyl and pierced by a metal loop in the top left corner, with the usual red ink on every page that will fade when exposed. The gold-embossed title on the sleeve catches the light.

  RITRY GOLIGH

  The name means something to me, but I don't know what. It's a name we take in vain, like a curse, but why's it on the cover? I shove the dossier down into my armor then evacuate the captain's hutch.

  The crew are gathered by the periscope, gearing up. Doe already has her huge shoulder-mounted bondless accelerator cannon on, while Ray is strapping tight the side-hammock for Far to ride in. They shove a knife in each boot, fasten elasteel coil spools to their belts wired to a grapnel-shot, holster Quantum Confusion pistols at their waists and each grab a tight ruckbag full of candlebomb, fuse, gamma-clamps and tracers.

  La and So are holding hands, like La and Ti usually do, but now Ti is down with the screw and So has taken her place. La and Ti are twins, each as skilled and beautiful as the other. La's blonde hair is in a tight bun, while So with her dark hair looks like a shadow. Both of their suits are covered in pockets and patches containing every possible scientific tool we could need for a mission, while on their backs th
ey carry larger equipment; for mass spectography, dissolution analysis and advanced mapping kit I wouldn't understand.

  I nod at them. These are all professionals. These are my crew, tones hand-picked for the chord, now sweating, shaken and looking to me for guidance. I am the captain, after all. Ray gives me a tired wink. He doesn't even have a cigar stub between the silver loop piercings in his teeth, that's how bad it is.

  The ship lurches again and La bleats out the report. "That'll be the second layer gone. We've minutes only."

  "Where's Far?" I ask, looking around. "Where's Ti?"

  Ray produces Far from behind him. The boy is terrified, and the welts in his neck are rising up again. "Give him some candy, Ray," I say, then turn to Doe. "Where's Ti?"

  She says nothing. Of course we all knew this was coming.

  The ship jolts again and steam pours up into the conning tower from below, filled with the overwhelming smell of sea salt and sweets baking in kilns. What? Doe is at my side, speaking in my ear.

  "Ti will have to stay down there, driving the screw on or we'll sink before we even surface. All of us will sink."

  I knew it the moment I sent her down there. Ti is going to die so the rest of us can live. I stride for the EOT bell and ring it backward and forward five times, enough to make it clear when no words will do.

  Thank you.

  Then Doe is strapping in my Quantum Confusion pistol, Ray bolts my Heads-Up-Display helmet over my head and I grab a ruckbag of gear.

  Then the ship surfaces.

  Everybody falls as the ship's nose jerks up through the surface of the Molten Core like a cork bobbing on water. The grind of molten stone fades a little, even as the screw deep below whines hard to keep the extra weight of us buoyant.

  I pick myself up and quickly take stock. Smoke is everywhere, so thick I can barely see the others, but still I find my way to the conning tower ladder and start climbing up. Ten more rungs and I hit the exit hatch, rotate it a full revolution and open it inward.

  Super-baked air pours in, scalding my lungs, and I slam my HUD's visor into place. "Screen your eyes," I shout down at the chord. My HUD display grays instantly, blocking the worst of the magma glare glowing through the brick.

  "Pick," I shout down, and Ray hands me up the pickaxe. It's hard to wield in this tight space, but it has to be done. The inner hull of brick is mortared in place like the wall of a house, the last thing between the outside and the baking interior of this dying ship.

  I drive the pick into the brick and red clay shards spit out. A chunk of mortar clatters off my visor. Sweat stings in my eyes and I swing again, taking a sizable divot out of the inner hull, and catch a taste of the extreme heat without.

  Two more blows, this time with the suit's exo-muscles engaged, and the bricking tumbles down around me. I climb up through the hole, onto a blackened crag of sinewy black magma crust, cooling now atop the back of the Bathyscaphe.

  Around me is the all-encircling glory of the Molten Core; a burning, curving sea of fire. In every direction the molten flows spread outward and upward, red and orange with a crust of dirty black in places, arcing around to rejoin far overhead in a perfect globe. We are but a dark outcropping on this churning, encircling ocean, a burned ship's nose on the inner surface of a vast sphere walled with lava.

  I don't think I've ever seen this before.

  "Holy shit," Ray says. "It's like climbing up into hell."

  He's right. It is no place for people, not even marines. I look directly up and see a great moon of black rusted metal hanging at the center, pitted as though with old meteor strikes. We have breached the surface of the Molten Core to reach it.

  The Solid Core.

  I've heard legends, I know stories, but there's no content to any of them. I've felt it all my life, pulsing away at the edge of the thousand missions I've run, but I've never seen it before. It is immense. It hangs at the very heart, encircled by a moat of air and suspended by nothing, just existing.

  "Ho-ly shit," Ray repeats. "That is a humdinger."

  So and La climb up beside us, followed by Doe. Of course there is no Ti. Each of their faces shows the awe they're feeling to be here, except Doe, who stares only at me expectantly.

  I nod. "Work the grapnels," I tell her. "Get us off this thing."

  The Bathyscaphe grumbles underfoot, and I know the screw is dying under the ship's immense weight. There is no way Ti can make it out now. But who is Ti anyway? I have no real memories of her, and perhaps this is why. I saw her once down the corridor, and then she died so that the rest of us could live. She is an idea that has served its purpose, and her death is as certain and complete as any death in history.

  I pat the mission document tucked against my chest, hold onto Far tight and watch as Doe fires her grapnel line to the Solid Core. It whips upward, uncoiling rapidly from the spool at her waist. The grapnel crosses the gulf, bites into the Core and locks, then Doe begins latching us all onto the taut line even as the ship sinks underfoot. Its metal walls buckle with a deep scream beneath the heat, like a crumpling tin can, and its final brick hull melts away. It starts to sink downward and we sink with it, inching back to the molten flows which birthed us.

  Goodbye Ti, I think, as Doe starts the grapnel incoil and my feet lift off the ship's crusted black back. It should be the captain who goes down with the ship, I think, not the engineer. Goodbye Ti, goodbye Bathyscaphe.

  We rise into the air in a clump and I watch my sublavic sink. Perhaps I am crying, as it folds slowly into the burning waves. Magma flows into the hole I hammered through its brick and mortar back, and I can only hope the end for Ti will be quick. Probably she will choke on exhaust though, as the magma burns up all the air. Then she will bake, then she will crumple as the walls bend inward, and then she will burn.

  Below me the ship is swallowed and gone.

  I look up, my body nudging against Ray and So as we rise. The ragged black bulk of the Solid Core grows massive overhead.

  This is why we have come.

  C. SOLID CORE

  The Solid Core changes as we draw in; no longer a moon-like sphere, it becomes a black ceiling with a slightly convex horizon, broken by uneven struts, chaotic metal gables and strange bracing stanchions, like it was welded by a child. We web ourselves to it through large rivet-holes in its ancient, rusted girders. Up close the surface is pitted and corroded, etched with dozens of graffiti messages from those who've come before.

  CARROLLA WAS HERE

  FERRILY TIGRATES HECLAN

  RG + VEN 4EVA

  Who were these people? I wonder, as I run my gloved fingers over the marks they've left behind. Were they like Ti, marines who could never make it any further, who died to bring us this far?

  I should stop thinking about her; I don't even remember anything about her more than a flash of dark hair. I have responsibilities to the living.

  I give orders to Doe, La and So for a patrol to recon the Solid Core, and they start at once; shooting their grapnels to the next beam of girders, hooking in on elasteel line and traversing the rough black ceiling through low arcing swings.

  Now Far is tucked in beside me, sitting on the lip of a Solid Core girder, and Ray is singing him a simple song. Ray is good at this kind of thing.

  Looking down there's the sea of Molten Core below, yellow striped with red like muscle fibers. Orange bubbles of liquid rock burst lazily on the surface. I touch my chest above the mission document tucked into my combat suit and wonder about its meaning.

  Ritry Goligh.

  It's a name, but who? Not one of my marines or anyone I know, more like a kind of distant concept like god or the devil. I intend to read the pack as soon as both my lieutenants are present, to catch everything we can before the ink disappears.

  "Do you know someone called Ritry Goligh?" I ask Ray.

  He stops singing to Far and looks to me with a raised eyebrow. "No. He sounds familiar though. Who is he?"

  "I don't know. Title of the mission pack."<
br />
  He nods. "You found it then."

  "Yeah."

  He gives me a blank look. "I shouldn't say this, since I'm your second lieutenant, but I don't even know what this mission's for, Me." A long pause. "Do you?"

  I don't, not any more than him, but I'm the captain and can't show that indecision. "Enter the Solid Core."

  "OK, but beyond that? I don't remember anything before waking up in the sublavic, though I know who you are, and the others. Even this kid," he nudges Far. "I know we're a team, we've worked together before, but I don't know why."

  "We're a chord," I say. "It hurt me to lose Ti too."

  Ray looks away. "A chord, yeah. I didn't even speak to her."

  I don't know how I know Ray. I couldn't name his birthday or what city he's from, but I do know that this is a way he grieves, as if we've already seen a thousand deaths together.

  "Do you think it's an effect of the forging," he asks, "this loss of memory?"

  I think back to those first moments in the sublavic, trapped in the forging fire and not knowing who or what I was. "I can't really remember ever being forged before. I've got nothing to compare it to."

  Silence holds between us for a while, broken only by the distant flare and fizz of magma below. I feel uneasy; like there's something I'm supposed to be doing, but I don't know what it is.

  I pull out the mission pack. The hot wind flutters its pages, and I hook an elasteel line from my belt through the binding hole in the corner. It clanks satisfyingly. I look over the red cover with its mysterious RITRY GOLIGH in gold, feeling the weight of it in my hands.

  "You should wait to share it with Doe," Ray says.

  "I will," I answer, and I turn the blood-mic comms system on. I barely need to vocalize the sound, as the blood in my body captures the vibrations in my throat and transmits them through the reader over my heart. "Doe, I'm going to read out loud the first page of our mission brief."