Simply because Nick and his people were out on Thanatos Minor’s surface and therefore vulnerable, Liete ordered, “Fix targ on Tranquil Hegemony. That comes first. We’ll tackle Soar when we know more about what’s happening.”
Malda nodded.
Liete looked at the display screen which showed Captain’s Fancy’s position behind Soar on her way toward Calm Horizons. In silence she promised Nick that she wouldn’t let him down.
Not after this. Now she understood completely that he could never be beaten.
ANGUS
he arc lamps were dim for a moment; they flickered as if they were sizzling inside. Then they came back up to brightness as if someone in Operations had dialed a rheostat.
Angus remained still on the edge of the concrete, waiting for his datacore to send him into motion again; plunge him back into a headlong rush toward Milos and doom.
“What went wrong?” Sib Mackern panted raggedly, as if he had no background in data and damage control.
“Nothing,” Angus muttered. I hope.
“Power doesn’t matter.” Nick sounded abstract, thinking about something else. “What matters is communications.” His head tilted back: he stared upward as if he could see Captain’s Fancy receding from him. But of course he couldn’t: even with all her running lights ablaze, she would be invisible now, washed from sight by the intensity of the lamps. Nevertheless an odd note of yearning in his tone suggested that he spoke not to Sib, but to his ship. “If we’ve fried enough of their circuits, they’ll be paralyzed. They won’t be able to talk to anybody.”
The Bill would be effectively helpless. Trapped in his strongroom, completely dependent on his communications network, he would have no idea what was happening. He would have to leave his reinforced hidey-hole, ride the lifts up to Operations, simply in order to obtain information. Calm Horizons and Tranquil Hegemony could talk to each other: they could talk to Soar. But none of them could reach Operations or the Bill.
Which meant that the threat to Trumpet would be temporarily neutralized.
And the Amnion would be cut off from the Bill; they wouldn’t be able to call him for help—
Without transition, as if he didn’t know how he’d passed from immobility to motion, Angus found himself running across the gnarled and whetted rock.
He wasn’t hampered like Sib: because of his zone implants, he breathed steadily, strongly, despite his instinctive EVA panic and the knowledge that he was lost. Strutted muscles and joints carried him easily across the treacherous surface, as if he could never fall. The matter cannon in his hands might as well have been weightless.
Sib’s hoarse gasping seemed to fill his helmet. He could hardly hear Mikka’s labored respiration: he couldn’t hear Nick at all.
Bounding between igneous outcroppings and glazed planes, Nick ran as if he didn’t need welding to match Angus. In reaction Angus’ lips pulled a snarl across his teeth. He wanted to run faster, leave Nick behind; outdo him somehow. Then he noticed that Nick was experimenting with his jets: teaching himself how to control them; using them to keep pace.
Their destination loomed ahead. Distance reduced the glow from the arc lamps; in their faded brilliance the concrete of the Amnion sector silhouetted itself against the absolute void. Above Thanatos Minor’s surface the installation was like a bunker in size as well as configuration. The part which protruded from the ancient splash and swirl of the rock was nothing more than a small section of roof—an emergency exit. It gave the Amnion a way out. The dedicated berth where Tranquil Hegemony rested was half a kilometer away on the left. Docking lights picked the high bulk of the warship out from the dark; guns and antennae articulated her bulbous shape.
If her crew was running scan—if the Amnion were that cautious—they would see Angus and Nick, with Mikka and Sib lagging behind. Tranquil Hegemony might not be able to contact Operations—perhaps not even her own people in the installation—but she could send out forces of her own.
Between her and this bunker, the raw stone was marked only by a flat metallic sheet nearly thirty meters on each side, the sliding hatch of a shuttle port. It protected a small dock which could launch and receive personnel craft.
“Be more careful, Sib,” Mikka ordered tightly. “They’ll wait for us when they need us. You won’t do anybody any good if you fall and tear your suit.”
Sib didn’t answer. He was panting too hard.
Nick waved a hand at the bunker. “I presume,” he said between breaths, “you’ve got a plan for this, too.”
Angus didn’t need a plan. He needed a design diagram. His databases and his own experience suggested that this installation was large enough to quarter a hundred or more Amnion. Where would they keep Morn? How could he find her?
Assuming he survived that long, how could he locate the other thing his programming required, a way into Billingate’s infrastructure?
On the strength of welded muscles and lesser g, he leaped in one long stride to the top of the bunker.
His immediate goal was on the far side. When he dropped over the edge, he landed on a concrete apron in front of the outer door of the airlock.
He hardly noticed as Nick sprang down beside him: his concentration had focused in like the beam of a laser as he studied the exterior control panel and intercom. Under different circumstances the locking mechanism would have been no obstacle. If he’d been willing to open the installation to the vacuum—and warn the Amnion that they were under attack, give them time to seal their interior doors and marshal their defenses—he could have simply blasted his way in. But to rescue Morn he needed a better approach.
“Now what?” Nick sounded impossibly close, as if he were inside Angus’ helmet. “If you use the intercom and ask nicely, they’ll probably just open up. Why not? That way they can get their hands on all of us at once.”
“Shut up,” Angus muttered. His tension showed in his voice. Apparently his programming no longer cared how much dread he betrayed.
From a distance of half a dozen centimeters he glared at the control panel.
With his EM vision, he should have been able to read its circuitry exactly. For some reason, however, his prostheses had gone blind.
His heart lurched in panic, and his hands ran with sweat inside his gloves. What was going on? He couldn’t see what he needed; his datacore had switched off his enhanced sight; Dios or Lebwohl had sent him this far only to make him fail—
Then an artificial calm slowed his pulse. From the window in his head came a flood of information about his prostheses.
He couldn’t see, he was informed, because the polarization of his faceplate distorted his EM vision.
Shit! Just what he needed.
Urgently he adjusted the degree of polarization. At the same time he scaled it up and down the spectrum, hunting for a wavelength which would let him read the control panel. He didn’t need polarization at all, not here in the shadow of the bunker, protected from the burning glare of the lamps; but the faceplate induced a distortion of its own, blurring EM emissions. Scrambling through databases while he made his adjustments, he searched for settings to counteract the inherent refraction.
“What’re you doing?” Nick inquired sardonically. “Trying to unlock it by willpower?”
There: an imprecise flicker of electromagnetic tracery like a circuit board seen under a disfocused microscope. Too much detail was lost; accuracy would be almost impossible. But Angus might be able to cut into the lock wiring without setting the whole installation afire with alarms.
As he reached for his laser, he told Nick, “Get Sib and Mikka here. We can’t wait for them.”
Nick didn’t move; didn’t obey. He stood still and watched while Angus narrowed his laser down to its smallest focus, aimed it into the center of the control panel, and fired.
A pinprick of metal flamed crimson, then denatured like smoke into the vacuum.
With luck, the alarm circuits were disabled.
Now a second shot, millimeters
away from the first.
A moment later the outer door of the airlock irised open like a dilating eye.
“You amaze me.” Nick’s tone was too cold and dangerous for awe. “The Bill doesn’t know how much you know about his computers. The Amnion don’t know how much you know about their airlocks. What’s next, Angus? Are you going to simply wave your hands and undo what they’ve done to Morn? Do you know that much about mutagens, too?”
Mikka rounded the corner of the bunker and came to a stop on locked knees. Through her faceplate, she looked frantic with exertion. When she saw the staring airlock, she gaped at it.
“Where’s Sib?” Angus demanded.
“Here.” Sib stumbled onto the apron and caught himself on Mikka’s shoulder. His handgun hung from his belt; he carried the extra EVA suit wrapped to his chest with both arms.
“We’re going in,” Angus announced harshly. “Shoot anybody you see, Amnion or human.” Shoot Milos, if you can. “Be ready to shoot yourselves—unless you like mutagens.
“If you’ve got some idea how to find Morn, I’m listening.”
Sib shook his head. His features twisted as if he were about to puke.
“As far as I know,” Nick remarked slowly, “there’s only one entrance from the rest of Billingate to the Amnion sector. She’ll be near there. Unless she’s one of them now, in which case she could be anywhere.”
“Why?” Angus rasped. “Why there?”
“Because they don’t trust me.” Nick grinned like his scars. “They don’t trust her. There’s more than one kind of kaze. They’ve learned to be careful. They won’t risk, say, an explosion that might do them real damage. They won’t let her anywhere near their operational center, or the shuttles, or that damn warship”—he nodded toward Tranquil Hegemony—“or any of the places where they work or live, until they’re sure she’s safe.”
Damn. Angus had to admit that Nick was right. But the airlock into Billingate was probably farther away from where he stood now than any other part of the Amnion sector.
The longer he stayed inside this installation, the more vulnerable he would be. He knew in the marrow of his bones that his programming would never allow him to kill Milos.
Too bad. Prewritten logic compelled him. It left no room for hesitation.
Bracing his cannon in both hands, he stepped into the airlock.
At once his fear turned the color of sulfur.
Outside Nick tilted his head again to study the featureless dark. As if he were talking to himself, he murmured softly, fervidly, “Do it. Don’t wait. Do it now.”
Then he followed Angus.
While Mikka and Sib joined him Angus made new adjustments to his faceplate, refining away the wavelengths which the Amnion liked best as if he could tune out panic and ruin.
Nick didn’t wait for orders: he thumbed keys on the inner control panel. An almost subliminal groan carried to Angus’ external pickup as the airlock cycled shut. A moment later he heard the hiss of pressurization as atmosphere pumped into the lock. Displays inside his helmet told him that he could breathe the air—if his life depended on it.
As soon as the airlock pressure had been equalized, the inner door irised.
It opened on an empty lift.
“Down,” Nick said unnecessarily. “I don’t know how far. Your guess is as good as mine.”
Angus’ computer ran complex calculations, comparing what he knew of Billingate and Thanatos Minor with the estimated size and depth of the Amnion sector; he let numbers spin through him while he entered the lift. By the time Nick, Mikka, and Sib had left the lock, his computer had come up with its own guess.
The lift’s controls showed twenty-five indicators: he had that many levels to choose from. Holding his breath involuntarily, he keyed the tenth.
Servos closed the iris like a shutter. A heartbeat or two after the door shut, the car dived for the depths of the rock.
Angus positioned himself against the back wall so that he could level his cannon. “I’ll lead, but I want you beside me, Nick.” His voice distressed the inside of his helmet. “Don’t make me use this thing if I don’t have to.”
Matter cannon had been developed for use in the void, where the secondary and tertiary quantum discontinuities could be discounted. No man in his right mind would fire such a gun within walls.
Nick replied by showing his teeth.
“Mikka,” Angus went on, “you and Sib cover my back. You cover him—don’t let anything happen to that suit.”
Through her faceplate, he saw her nod. “We are going to get out of this alive, aren’t we?” she asked grimly. “I promised Ciro I would come back.”
“If I survive, you probably will, too. They may have a whole fucking arsenal handy, but it won’t include anything like this.” Angus waggled the end of his cannon.
That was as close as he could come to telling her the truth.
The lift seemed to plummet like a stone, but it didn’t scare him. Instead he felt a small piece of his visceral dread break away, lost in the fall. At least now he was no longer EVA. He was inside, where the vast dark couldn’t reach him—
With a palpable wheeze, the car braked to a halt at the tenth level.
Sib snatched his handgun off his belt. Mikka tightened her grip on her rifle. Nick and the muzzle of Angus’ cannon faced the door as it slid aside.
Apparently the unauthorized use of the lift had attracted attention. An Amnioni with several arms and at least four eyes stood waiting. A bandolier across its shoulders carried spare charges for the heavy, rust-caked weapon in its hands.
Nick’s reflexes were almost as fast as Angus’. Before the Amnioni could twitch, he slammed it in the chest with impact fire.
His gun made a muffled sound like dynamite buried in cement, and the Amnioni staggered backward. Spraying strange, greenish blood from a massive hole in its chest, the creature hit the wall and fell onto its face.
Together Nick and Angus sprang out of the lift.
Sib made a choking noise, as if he’d swallowed his tongue. Mikka grabbed his arm and shoved him into motion ahead of her.
Angus scanned the corridor in both directions, wheeled to orient himself. His computer scrolled design hypothetical through his head. To the right, the passage stretched empty for a considerable distance. To the left, it turned a corner out of sight after ten meters.
That way, his computer said—to the left; away from Tranquil Hegemony’s berth.
He pointed Nick in that direction. “Go!”
Nick sprinted toward the corner; then dived skidding onto his belly as two more Amnion armed with heavy rifles came into sight.
They were ready: they’d heard the distinctive concussion of an impact gun. As soon as they caught sight of Nick, they began to lay down fire.
Energy beams sizzled in the air like frying flesh. Reacting at machine speed, Angus jumped backward, blocking Mikka and Sib out of the way. But he couldn’t shoot: at this range his cannon’s blast would reduce Nick to pulp and grease.
Nick’s dive carried him under the blare of beams. Before the Amnion could correct their aim, he hit them both.
Echoes rolled like distant thunder down the corridor, calling for the Amnion to notice that they were under attack.
Angus ran. By the time Nick regained his feet, Angus had reached the corner.
Beyond it the passage went straight for twenty or twenty-five meters, past several closed doors and one lift. There it met another door as high and wide as the entrance to a meeting hall. From that point it turned left again.
Nick came up beside Angus; started to pass him. Instincts squalled in Angus’ head: he stopped Nick with an arm like a steel bar.
This was why Hashi Lebwohl and Warden Dios had chosen him. Trained by a lifetime of cowardice and violence, he had instincts which no computer could match.
“Now what?” Nick demanded.
At that moment the high doors opened. Reacting to the sounds of detonation, six or eight Amnion crowde
d outward to see what was happening.
“Time for another diversion,” Angus snarled tightly.
Planting his weight, he fired his cannon at the Amnion.
The blast nearly deafened him: the gain on his external pickup was set too high. If he hadn’t braced himself—and if he hadn’t been welded for this kind of work—the concussion might have ripped him off his feet.
Mikka staggered backward. Sib fell on his back with an inarticulate cry that seemed to echo like the blast through the devastation in the corridor.
For an instant pulverized concrete clouded everything; the lighting flickered as automatic relays rerouted power. Then the dust cleared, sucked into the air-scrubbers, and the effects of matter cannon fire in an enclosed space became visible.
Only rubble remained of the meeting hall. Even its far wall was gone, ripped open on service shafts snarled with wiring and conduits. So much concrete and steel had been torn from the walls and ceiling that Angus could see little else: the bodies of the Amnion had disappeared as if they’d been atomized. He might have been looking at a bomb crater in one of Earth’s embattled slums.
Through the neural reverberation in his ears, he heard alarms of all kinds—wails of structural damage; warnings of bloodshed; calls to battle.
A diversion wouldn’t do him any good if he stayed there to see what would happen next. “Come on!” he shouted. Too loud, he knew he was shouting too loud, his companions could hear him without that. But if he didn’t shout, he couldn’t hear himself.
Mikka helped Sib back to his feet. At a run Angus led them and Nick to the lift.
They jumped aboard, and he sent the car down one level.
The corridor it opened on was completely deserted. Apparently every Amnioni in the vicinity had already left to deal with the emergency above.
If one diversion was good, two would be better. Give the Amnion reason to think they were under a completely different kind of assault. Angus thrust Nick, Mikka, and Sib out of the lift. From his belt he detached a limpet mine; he set its timer for thirty seconds, clamped it to the side of the car, hit controls to send the car on downward. Then he jumped out as the doors closed.