Then he wheeled back to face the others.
“Davies, go with them. Keep them safe. Call me the instant you’re clear.
“The rest of us are going to burn.”
He saw the white glare of uncertainty from Davies’ eyes, the skepticism on Nick’s face. Mikka glowered at him like a threat; Sib’s fright was as open as his mouth. But Angus ignored them: he had no more time. He hefted his matter cannon, toggled the jet control on his chest plate. Trusting Thanatos Minor’s g, his reinforced joints, and his prewritten knowledge to protect him, he flung himself in a long leap off Trumpet’s hull.
As if they were trained for it, his hips cocked upward. At once the suit’s jets cut in, braking his drop to the concrete. He landed easily, bounded a few steps ahead, then turned to make sure that Nick and the others were following.
“Angus!” Davies shouted. Too much volume hurt Angus’ ears. “She’s my mother! She’s all I have!”
Angus didn’t answer. Dread and prewritten exigencies consumed him.
Like Angus, Nick sprang from the ship. His control of his jets was awkward, but he managed them well enough to land safely.
Mikka shook her head. Snatching the extra suit from Sib, she lobbed it toward Angus; then she located a series of zero-g handgrips circling Trumpet’s girth and lowered herself rapidly down the side.
Angus caught the suit: he couldn’t risk letting it be damaged. Morn would need it.
Or she wouldn’t.
Or he might not get to her at all.
Grinding his teeth, he forced himself to wait until Mikka and Sib caught up with him. Then he pushed the extra suit into Sib’s arms and started running.
Low g made running easy, if not effortless. Three k was too far, but he couldn’t help that: the Amnion sector was where it was. In truth he didn’t know why he wanted to get there so fast. Milos Taverner was almost certainly waiting for him—and Milos had his priority codes. Yet he ran without the urging of his datacore or the pressure of his zone implants.
He ran because he was a coward. More than anything else, he needed to arrive at the end of his fear.
Over his shoulder he saw Vector, Ciro, and Davies nearing their destination. The long cable snaked behind them, black against the blaring white of the concrete. Surely Vector would know how to wire the dish; surely Nick’s engineer would be at least that competent. Angus could have done the job himself in his sleep—
His helmet seemed to echo with the sound of Sib’s labored breathing. Mikka’s flat, grim stride gave the impression that she could sustain it for hours. But Sib was too scared; he moved with bands of trepidation tightening around his chest.
Too bad. Angus didn’t slow his pace.
“Use your jets, Mackern,” Nick suggested. “Turn them on and poke with your hips like you’re fucking. That should give you a lift forward.”
Good Captain Sheepfucker, still trying to create the impression that he cared what happened to his people.
If Sib had stopped to think, he might not have tried it. But he was frantic. His free hand flopped at his chest plate; locking his legs, he tried to thrust his hips up and forward.
At exactly the wrong instant he stumbled. The sudden pressure of his jets carried him straight at Angus like a cargo sled gone out of control.
Riding enhanced reflexes, Angus spun out of the way; grabbed Sib by one arm and leg, and hauled him to a stop before he could strike the concrete and tear his suit.
“Shit,” Sib panted in deep gulps. “Shit.”
He sounded too much like Milos. Angus slapped at his jets toggle for him, then left him and ran on.
Now Davies’ group had reached the dish. Vector handled the cable while Ciro dug tools out of the kit. Davies braced himself with his impact rifle in his hands as if he were willing to burn down the heavens in order to defend the engineers.
Two k to go.
Mikka dropped back to pace Sib. Angus and Nick rushed ahead together.
“Angus.” This time Davies didn’t shout. His voice was hushed, as if he were afraid of being overheard. “Vector has the junction cover off. The wiring looks simple—I could probably do this myself. We’ll be ready in a minute or two.”
“Get clear when you’re done,” Angus ordered between breaths. “There’s going to be one hell of a static discharge.”
“They used to call it a corposant,” Vector remarked in a concentrated tone. “Or St. Elmo’s fire.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Ciro asked. Angus’ helmet speakers were tiny, but they picked up the undercurrent of dissociation in the boy’s words. He was too young to know what to do with his fear.
“Ciro,” Mikka gasped as if she were coughing, “stay with Vector. I’ll be back. That’s a promise.”
“Sailors on oceangoing ships,” Vector answered calmly. “Back on Earth a long time ago. The ships were wood, and they used wind for drive. Sometimes during storms the atmosphere generated so much static it seemed to gather in balls and roll along the masts and spars.”
After a moment Angus realized that Vector was talking in order to steady his second; distract the boy from his fear.
For some reason this recognition filled him with such rage that he seemed to go blind. His computer could still see: his zone implants kept him running flawlessly. Nevertheless his eyes registered only red fury. The crib turned the inside of his faceplate opaque, and the only defense he had left against the molten, helpless agony which the looming woman had inflicted on him was a mad and murderous hate.
That must have been why he wanted so intensely to rescue Morn. She, too, had a zone implant: he’d used it to abase her in every way his desperation could devise. Therefore he needed her; depended on her to the same extent and for the same reason that he’d been dependent on the looming woman—for his survival. That woman could have killed him: Morn could save him. Her zone implant had enabled him to reverse their positions in and above the crib; to fend off the abyss.
And like that other woman, she knew his most necessary and fatal secret—
His suit’s climate controls couldn’t cool him fast enough. Sweat ran down his collar, congealed in his armpits and crotch.
One k to go.
Abruptly he and Nick passed the last arc lamp and came to the end of the concrete which had been poured for the docks. From here he could see the entrance to the Amnion sector crouching like a bunker in Thanatos Minor’s surface; but he would have to cross bare, raw rock to get there.
Now any fall would be much more dangerous. Mylar and plexulose could resist a variety of punctures, or reseal around the holes; but the suits might not stand up to being torn on this old, sharp stone.
Angus turned to look for Mikka and Sib.
They were at least two hundred meters back, still lagging. She held one of his arms, supporting him as well as she could: they ran together awkwardly, bouncing against each other and stumbling away as if they were exhausted.
“Angus.” Davies’ voice seemed to come from the black void overhead. “We’re done. It’s ready.”
Angus saw three small shapes hurrying to distance themselves from the radio dish. “Are you clear?” he demanded.
“Clear enough,” Vector reported. “Do it now—if you still can.”
Angus Thermopyle might have hesitated: ordinary mortality might have slowed his reactions in a situation like this.
If the Bill had detected the trick—
If Operations had disabled the embedded codes—
If someone somewhere had witnessed what was happening and warned Billingate—
But Joshua had no mortality. From a pouch in his EVA suit he took out the small transmitter he’d prepared for the occasion.
In one smooth motion, he aimed the transmitter’s antenna and thumbed the switch.
Picoseconds later an incandescent conflagration as feral as lightning and as noiseless as nightmare caught the dish and etched it against the black heavens.
Then every illumination across the whole of the visito
rs’ docks went dark.
Midnight seemed to slam down on Thanatos Minor like an avalanche. No stars, no light, no movement, Angus saw nothing, heard nothing, he was alone, the abyss had swallowed him utterly. Nick, Mikka, and Sib; Vector, Ciro, and Davies: they were all stricken from existence; even their broadcast breathing couldn’t reach him across the vacuum.
Locked in the silence of his zone implants, he began gibbering to himself because he couldn’t wail aloud.
Then Nick drawled suddenly, “Well, that worked, anyway.”
At the sound, Angus felt an instant of inconceivable gratitude.
Nevertheless his datacore didn’t know and couldn’t care what he felt. It paid no attention to his fear—or his relief. Impelled by artificial emissions, he stowed his small transmitter. Next he unclipped a hand lamp from his belt and flashed it for Mikka and Sib.
“Ciro,” Mikka gasped hoarsely, “are you all right?”
“Sure. Of course.” For a moment the boy wasn’t afraid at all. “That was incredible.”
“We’re fine, Angus,” Davies reported. His voice was rough with relief. “We’re moving toward you now. We’ll come about halfway and wait for you.”
“No!” Angus called back. “Stay close to Trumpet and cover us from there! I don’t want you cut off.”
Davies’ reply came like a farewell out of the dark.
“Right.”
“I see them!” Sib gulped unexpectedly.
“We see your light, Angus,” Mikka announced. “We’re coming.”
Before Angus’ programming could send him off across the rock, the arc lamps came back on.
LIETE
iete sat perfectly still, sweating while she waited for more orders; waited for the Amnion to believe that their first instructions had been obeyed.
“All right,” Pastille panted. “I understand. I think I understand. You want us to look helpless so we can keep our options open. You don’t want them to know Nick has already replaced those codes—”
Sounding tense, nearly feverish, Malda Verone put in, “Because if they know those codes don’t work they’ll be afraid of us. They’ll try to kill us before we can do anything.”
But Pastille wasn’t done. “Was that all they told us? Shut down thrust?”
“And targ,” Malda informed him.
“But what do they get out of it?” he protested. “We’re still moving—still on the heading we want. All we’ve lost is acceleration. We’re still getting away.”
“Don’t you ever use your head?” Malda’s voice shivered. “We’re coming into range for Billingate’s guns. They’ll be able to hit us soon—and we can’t maneuver. Or shoot back.”
“This is just the beginning,” Liete pronounced as if she were sure. “They’ll send more orders when they’re sure the last ones were effective. They don’t know our systems—even with those codes, they can’t control us precisely. So they started crude. As soon as they’re ready, they’ll try some refinements.”
If they get the chance. If they don’t already have too many other things to worry about.
“Their first order,” Lind offered nervously, “was to keep open a link between communications and the command computer. What they’ll probably do next is use the link to demand information so they can plan their ‘refinements.’”
Could they tell the difference? Liete wondered. Did they know Captain’s Fancy had lost thrust and weapons power, not on their orders, but on hers?
Probably not. They weren’t trying to pull data back out of her board; not yet. They’d simply issued instructions and then watched to see what would happen.
She had no time to waste. The wind was blowing: like Nick, it burned away her choices. She needed to prepare now, before Calm Horizons took the next step.
“In case you’re interested,” Carmel remarked from scan, “I can tell you where those seven people from Trumpet are headed.”
Liete couldn’t help herself. Nick was almost certainly one of the seven.
And she needed another minute or two to think.
“Go on,” she told Carmel.
“None of them are anywhere near the guns,” the scan first said flatly. “Three of them stopped at one of the radio dishes. They’re dragging something. It’s too small to scan accurately—Billingate emits too much garbage—but it might be a cable.
“The other four are moving fast—I mean running—straight across the docks. They aren’t together anymore. Two of them have pulled ahead. But the other two are following.
“There aren’t any ships in that direction—if you don’t count Tranquil Hegemony.” Carmel paused, then remarked bluntly, “At a guess, I would say they were headed for the Amnion installation.”
Liete’s stomach churned. The Amnion installation.
Nick! What’re you doing?
“So much for your theory about the guns,” Pastille snarled.
Without warning the scorched heat of the desert took her, and she lost control.
She flung off her belt, jumped out of her g-seat. “Will you shut up?” she yelled at the helm third, “or do I have to send you off the bridge?” Any of the people around her could have shouted louder than she did, but none of them could make their voices carry and cut like hers. “I’m sick of listening to you whine because you can’t second-guess Nick! Believe it or not, Ransum can do your job—and she won’t bitch all the time!”
Pastille didn’t look at her: he faced his board as if he were concentrating hard. “Give me something to do,” he muttered past his shoulder. “I’m just sitting here.”
“I want noise!” Now that she’d started shouting, she couldn’t stop. The wind in her ears seemed to carry her out of herself. “I want emission chaos, as much as we can put out! I want to look exactly like a ship that’s fighting to figure out what went wrong—fighting to bring up power somehow—fighting like hell to break loose!”
Abruptly vehemence and urgency let go of her. A strange stillness like the center of a storm filled her.
“I want camouflage,” she explained calmly. “I want to emit so much confusion that Billingate and Calm Horizons and Soar won’t be able to tell the difference when we power up.”
Carmel didn’t hesitate. “I can run a feedback loop for some of our scan systems. Doppler sensors, radiant power emission receptors, particle sifters, things like that. Use them for broadcast instead of reception. We’ll look like we’re going critical—like we’re suffering some kind of meltdown.”
“Good.” Liete nodded. “Do it.”
Lind was already working. As his hands typed commands, he barked into his pickup, “Captain’s Fancy to all ships. Captain’s Fancy to Billingate Operations. Captain’s Fancy on all bandwidths. Emergency. Emergency. We are out of control. We have lost maneuvering power. Stay clear. I say again, do not approach us. We have a thrust emergency.” He hit more keys, then turned to Liete. “That’s on automatic across the operational spectrum.”
“Good,” she said again. Bracing herself on the command board so that she wouldn’t tremble, she lowered herself slowly back into her g-seat.
Malda chewed her lower lip. “I might be able to dummy a short into one or two of the lasers.” A taut vibration cut through her tone. “Make it look like I’m trying to tap maintenance power, but the lines can’t carry the load.”
Liete nodded once more. “And while you’re doing that, start leaking a little power back into the matter cannon. Keep it slow—maybe it won’t show. I want to be able to hit something in five minutes, if I have to.
“The same goes for you, Pastille. Bring the drive back up, but do it slow. Get ready to burn when the time comes.
“Lind, keep watching for orders from Calm Horizons. Just like before—I want analysis the same instant we hear from them.”
Lind opened his mouth to reply; but before he could find his voice, Carmel cried out, “Holy shit!”
“What?” Liete demanded, “What is it?”
“That dish just went up like
a flare!” Carmel shouted.
Almost immediately, however, she recovered her poise. In an oddly formal tone, she announced more quietly, “Billingate has experienced a complete power shutdown.”
“Operations is dead!” Lind gasped. “They aren’t making a sound.”
Liete’s heart thudded with admiration. Oh, Nick!
She fixed a look on Pastille. “Got any more complaints?”
But she didn’t give him time to respond. As if she were singing to herself, she said happily, “Analysis, Carmel.”
Carmel took a deep breath. “Nick must have hit the dish with enough juice to trigger every failsafe in Operations. That won’t stop them long. I mean they’ll be able to get power back up almost immediately. Life support, weapons, things like that. Those systems are designed to protect themselves and come back on-line. They should be functional again in less than a minute.
“Communications is another matter.”
Lind was so excited that he hopped against the belt of his g-seat. “Nobody designs communications gear to take that kind of jolt! If we’re lucky, their central systems have been slagged. If they are, they’ll still need hours to unscramble the damage. They may have to reprogram every computer in Operations—and that’s after they find and fix anything that burned.”
Carmel peered at her readouts, then said, “Right. Billingate has power back.”
Lind tightened the receiver in his ear, listened hard. Nearly crowing, he reported, “Nothing from Operations. They’re still dead.”
“And”—Liete’s heart went on singing, even though her voice was calm—“we have exactly what we need. A diversion. Suddenly we’re nobody’s biggest worry. We’re helpless—we don’t matter anymore. What matters is what’s happening to Billingate.
“This is our chance.” She faced Pastille squarely. Nick has given us our chance. “Let’s not miss it.”
Pastille nodded as if he were in awe.
“Malda?” Liete asked.
The targ first hunched over her console, keying commands as fast as she could. “I’ll be ready,” she murmured distantly.