He told her where Davies was, he seemed to imply that he’d already rescued her son—which wasn’t so much impossible as entirely inconceivable.
Yet Sib Mackern was here as well. That was true, wasn’t it? She could recognize him through his faceplate, couldn’t she? He was trembling to help her: solicitude seemed to pour off him in waves, despite the interference of mylar and plexulose. Unless the whole thing was an hallucination—unless the reality of what Nick had done to her and what she’d done to humankind had at last become so unbearable that she’d fled from it into dreams—
Some of Captain’s Fancy’s people wanted to help her? They’d come to rescue her? With Nick? And Angus?
She clung to her son’s name and the grips of the impact rifle so that she wouldn’t break into mad, lost sobs.
Sib tried to help her; he urged her limbs into an EVA suit. She wanted his help, wanted the suit itself. But Angus had said, You don’t let Succorso touch him. She couldn’t release the rifle long enough to put on the suit.
Gently Sib took hold of her left hand and tried to urge her fingers loose.
As sudden as a figment, Nick appeared in the doorway. Keying his external speaker, he snapped, “If you clowns don’t hurry, none of us are going to get out of this alive.”
As if it were cued by his voice, a concussion shuddered through the cell. For an instant the sulfurous lighting flickered. Dust sifted from the corners of the walls. Somewhere nearby a powerful explosion had taken place.
What had she seen in Angus’ hands? What land of gun was that? It’d looked like a scale model of a matter cannon.
Was he fighting for her escape with a matter cannon?
He was capable of that. The same indomitable cowardice which made him a rapist also made him deadly.
A small mewling sound came from her mouth as she forced open her fingers, let Sib pull her arm into the EVA suit.
Next the right: she transferred the rifle to her left hand, then shoved her right urgently into the glove of the suit. Second by second a nameless desperation mounted in her. Each of her forearms bore the marks of a tiny wound where the Amnion had injected her with mutagens—and another where they’d drawn blood. All the norepinephrine and dopamine and immunity had been sucked out of her into those small vials, betraying her whole species. She had nothing left except fear.
She thought that Sib would seal her suit, but he didn’t. Instead he began to strap some kind of interior harness around her hips. “It’s a new system for controlling your jets,” he explained as he worked. “It’s like a waldo—you move your hips, and the jets fire. You may need it.” Lamely he added, “I can’t control it myself.”
Now she knew she was dreaming. She’d trained with suits like this in the Academy: Starmaster had been equipped with them. But the technology was recent. No one except the UMCP had it.
As quickly as he could, Sib finished with the harness, then sealed her into the suit. Last came the helmet. He held it in front of her, waiting for her permission to put it on.
Because this was all a hallucination, and she knew it would soon end, leaving her as doomed and damned as ever, she pulled a deep breath through her mask, then nodded.
Sib swept the mask off her head and replaced it with her helmet.
As soon as the helmet was sealed, its indicators came to life, giving her oxygen, temperature, and vital sign status; assuring her of its integrity against hard vacuum.
“Let’s go, Morn.”
Sib’s voice through the internal speakers sounded too close, too intimate. Nevertheless she didn’t raise her hands to reduce the gain: they were locked onto her rifle, and she didn’t intend to remove them again. Like a madwoman she believed that as long as she gripped the gun she could keep the dream of rescue from ending.
Anchored by the pressure of her fingers on the rifle, she allowed Sib to take her arm and draw her out of the cell.
“Finally!” Nick snarled. “Come on.”
Without waiting for an answer, he broke into a run toward the end of the passage.
Hadn’t Sib said, Mikka, Vector, even Pup? But only Mikka Vasaczk stood in the hall. Where were Vector and Pup?
And where was Angus? Morn expected to find him there, keeping the whole Amnion installation at bay with his strange gun. But he’d gone somewhere.
Blurred by the polarization of two faceplates, Mikka peered at her. Mikka’s face was distorted and familiar: her glower looked like the anxiety of an old friend.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “Did we get here in time?”
Morn’s throat worked convulsively, swallowing sobs. “They took my blood.” That was the worst accusation she could level against herself. “They’ve got the drug.”
“When we have some time”—Nick’s voice carried clearly from the end of the hall—“you can tell me how you got the drug.”
Morn hardly heard him. She was talking to Mikka.
“I betrayed—”
She fought to control herself, but she couldn’t keep her weeping down. Small sounds leaked like whimpers from her throat. Without her zone implant control, she was nothing.
“Maybe not.” Nick’s tone was harsh. “I told you, it only stays in your body for about four hours. Whether they got it depends on when you ate the capsules and when they drew blood.
“Now come on, goddamn it! Someday even these fuckers are going to figure out what happened and do something about it.”
When and when. Morn clung to the idea the same way she clung to her rifle. Was it possible that her dream included hope? Was it permitted in this hallucination that she’d saved herself without betraying humankind?
Maybe she could remember what she’d done; figure out the sequence of events and time. It was a fact that Nick had once told her the immunity drug stayed in the body for about four hours. If she could recall when she’d taken the capsules in relation to when the Amnion had taken her blood—
All right, think. When did she take the first one? When did she take the second? the third?
Obsessed by time, she let Mikka and Sib pull her forward.
Everything she’d suffered for days or months felt like a swirl of nightmare: she couldn’t distinguish one day from the next, certainly not one hour from the next. Nevertheless her need for this one hope was absolute. She wrestled her sore, brutalized mind for clarity, despite the fact that she was running now, that Sib and Mikka had dragged her into a run along a wide hall full of cruel illumination and intersections like maws; despite the fact that Nick and Mikka seemed to blaze away with their handguns almost constantly, and even Sib brandished fire as if he thought he could hit something that way.
An energy beam scorched past her head. Nick yelled as he fired; Sib gasped, “Christ!” For an instant the air sang with streaks of coherent force and light. Then Nick veered into a side passage. Mikka and Sib kept Morn close behind him.
Because she hadn’t known what was going to happen, she’d taken one capsule as soon as she found the vial in Nick’s cabin. Of course that immunity had passed out of her body during the long hours when she’d been kept drugged. But she’d taken another dose after Mikka had awakened her, before Mikka had delivered her to Nick. After that Nick had walked her to the Amnion sector and given her away. How much time passed then before she was injected with the mutagen? Half an hour at most? Roughly an hour since she’d eaten the capsule?
She’d been too terrified to measure time; but she had the impression that the Amnion had waited quite a while before drawing her blood.
She shook her head. Not good enough. Quite a while could mean anything. She would never be able to figure out the exact interval.
Sobs or gasps seemed to burst delicately inside her helmet, like bubbles.
Then a new idea entered her head like a ship crossing out of the gap.
This place had no research facilities. Maybe the Amnion hadn’t drawn her blood promptly because they couldn’t test it in any case. And maybe her immunity—artificial, like all her ot
her resources—was simply sitting here, sealed in sterile containers to await transportation to Enablement.
That was another kind of hope.
Almost immediately Nick led the way to a lift. The instant the doors opened he herded Mikka, Sib, and Morn into the car. It rose so swiftly that Morn’s knees nearly failed.
Where was Angus? Why wouldn’t she hear his matter cannon?
Taut with exertion, Sib’s voice strained in her ears. “This isn’t the way we came, Nick.”
Nick replied with a growl of disgust.
“That makes it safer,” Mikka panted tightly.
“We’ve got to stop those warships,” Morn breathed. “Calm Horizons. Tranquil Hegemony. Stop them.”
Sib gaped at her.
“Why?” Mikka demanded.
At last Morn noticed the desperation in Mikka’s eyes. She saw that Sib was close to exhaustion. Pale and bloodless, Nick’s scars gleamed as if they’d been cut to the bone.
“So they can’t take my blood back to Enablement.”
“How?” Now Mikka sounded as weary as Sib looked. “We’ve lost Captain’s Fancy. Our ship is a gap scout. Assuming we get back to her, she doesn’t carry the kind of guns that stop warships.”
“We aren’t going to stop anybody,” Nick rasped at Morn. Through his faceplate his eyes burned with the desire to inflict pain. “Just staying alive is going to be the best trick we’ve ever pulled off.
“Your Captain Thermo-pile told me a little secret. Something I had no idea about. When we went to Enablement, the Amnion already knew you were a cop. They knew I was working for the cops.”
In shock, Mikka barked, “What?”
Nick ignored her. “That’s why they were willing to kill us in the gap. They knew we were going to cheat as soon as we started talking to them. And it’s another reason they want your kid so badly. He has your mind. Just getting you wouldn’t be good enough. They want your mind intact—a cop mind that isn’t protected or distorted by zone implants.”
The lift stopped; opened. Balancing his guns in his hands, he sprang out to scan the corridor.
“Oh, Nick,” Mikka said like a moan. “You fool. You fool.”
“I don’t care,” Morn murmured while she followed him. As far as she knew, she was talking to herself. “They’ve got to be stopped. There must be some way to do it.”
She didn’t care what it cost. She wanted to burn her long pain clean in a blaze of destruction. If Davies died in the process, at least he would die human.
And he would understand. He was more than her son: he was an undistorted replica of her reasoning and knowledge, her passions and needs. He would feel the same way she did.
Off to her left, an Amnioni appeared in a doorway. Sib flung fire in that direction; but he stumbled, and his shot scored the floor. As he fell, he lost his grip on Morn’s arm.
She squeezed the firing stud of her rifle; heard a detonation like the sound of shattering stone. The Amnioni sprawled backward in a splash of rust and green.
Sib caught up with her as fast as he could. “Thanks,” he gulped. “I’m no good at this.”
The blast seemed to ignite her body. Shrugging off Mikka’s support, she ran on her own strength after Nick.
Now she was ready to fight. Her hands ached on the rifle, hungry for use.
The passages were empty, however. The Amnion had mustered their defenses elsewhere.
Nick led the way as if he knew exactly where he was going.
For his own reasons, he stopped at another lift. The car was slow to answer: according to its indicators, it had to come from several levels below. He swore steadily under his breath while he waited; as the doors finally slid open, he braced himself to fire.
Like the corridor, the car was empty.
“Is this it?” Sib asked urgently.
Nick entered the car without answering.
Mikka prodded Sib and Morn ahead of her. “I think so,” she panted.
Upward again. Now Morn rose as if she were going to sail through the top of her head; as if her spirit could soar straight on out of the lift and the installation, carrying only her rifle into space to do battle with the warships.
Unfortunately the rules of gravity held. When the car stopped at its highest level, her body still contained her. Abruptly the energy of impact fire drained out of her. She felt leaden and mortal, weighed down by the consequences of withdrawal and the implications of weakness. She hardly knew what she was seeing when the lift opened on the iris of an airlock.
An airlock. Her thoughts struggled slowly, clogged by old prostration. EVA.
We have to go EVA. It’s our only way back to Trumpet.
If she could have escaped the rock’s g, she could have flown her fate altogether; could have used the suit’s jets to waft her effortlessly out into the dark. Even against g the jets might be powerful enough to bear her away.
But the pressure might trigger her gap-sickness.
In any case, Davies was waiting for her; he needed her. For his sake she had to remain confined to her flesh a little longer.
As the iris dilated, it seemed to suck Nick into the airlock. Immediately he moved to the control panel and keyed the cycle. Mikka sent Sib and Morn after him, then paused to immobilize the lift by firing a laser into its controls.
The inner iris was already closing. She had to dive through it to reach the airlock.
Morn listened to the sibilant whine of depressurization and tried to believe that she was strong enough to reach Trumpet; that she would be able to find the strength somewhere, without the help of her black box.
As soon as the outer door irised, Nick strode onto the concrete apron of the airlock. Without waiting for anyone, he hurried out of sight around the corner of the bunker.
Beyond the lock loomed the planetoid’s black rock. A powerful illumination came from behind the head of the lift: the apron lay in shadow, but cold white streaked the fractured surface where Nick had gone.
Again Mikka paused to slag the controls. No one would Gripping the rifle as if it could keep her on her feet, Morn went after Nick.
Almost at once she caught sight of Tranquil Hegemony.
The ship’s docking lights defined her against the impenetrable heavens; the cold white glare etched her guns and antennae. The bulbous, inhuman shape which the Amnion preferred made her look squat despite her size. Past the metallic hatch of a shuttle port, her bulk lowered like a thunderhead over the raw stone.
Now Morn could see that the white illumination came from the arc lamps of the visitors’ docks. Nick ran in that direction, bounding over the rocks as fast as he could. Because she knew him intimately—because she understood that he was as treacherous as the surface—she suddenly grasped why he was in such a hurry.
He wanted to reach Trumpet in time to take command before Angus returned; in time to lock Angus out.
A new sting of fear swelled her heart. Nick had her black box. She preferred Angus.
Could Davies hear her? If she called her son’s name into her pickup, would he be able to receive her voice? Could she warn him?
She didn’t try. Her throat locked, holding her silent, when she saw Nick stop suddenly.
Planting his feet, he raised his arms to the dark. His helmet tilted back.
“Do it!” he cried. Fury and desperation made him frantic. “You little bitch, I gave you an order! I want you to do it!”
The dark didn’t answer.
Mikka and Sib came up beside Morn; they drew her with them toward the harsh light. For a moment or two, however, she could hardly move her legs. The intensity of Nick’s cry closed around her chest like a clutch of panic.
She was wrong about him.
Oh, God, what was he doing? What was he doing?
“I wish Liete didn’t worship him,” Mikka muttered bitterly. “She should have better sense.”
“What did he tell her?” Sib gulped.
“You ask him,” she retorted. “I’ve got too many other thin
gs to worry about.”
Without warning the light changed color. Morn saw sulfur lick like yellow flames across the side of Mikka’s suit.
At the same time she felt the rock under her boots rumbling.
“Nick!” Mikka yelled. “Get down!”
Morn turned toward the new glow.
The hatch of the shuttle port was in motion; it ground open like a window, spilling yellow illumination and a froth of atmosphere frozen to ice in an instant.
Simultaneously Mikka and Sib called, “Morn!” Mikka caught her arm, dragged her flat on the serrated knuckles of the rock.
A heartbeat later, the blast of thrusters shook the surface like an explosion, and a shuttle shaped like a g-stretched ball rode atmospheric ice out of the port. At full burn the craft hurled herself upward.
Morn and her companions were too close. Thrust dispersion hit them so hard that it might have torn their suits. Fortunately the vacuum leeched most of the force away. She felt the pressure wave slam along the length of her body and pass on.
All the status indicators inside her helmet showed a reassuring green.
Through her teeth Mikka hissed, “Now!” She sprang upright. “Let’s go.”
Panting raggedly, Sib hauled himself to his feet.
Morn stayed where she was.
For some reason, she couldn’t take her eyes off Tranquil Hegemony.
Right in front of her the ship’s running lights came on. “Morn?” Sib choked out. “Are you hurt? Do you need help?”
“Oh, shit,” Mikka moaned as she saw what Morn was looking at.
Batteries of searchlights stabbed abruptly off the sides of the warship. For a moment they wandered aimlessly; then they pulled into focus and swept toward the airlock bunker and the docks. Almost immediately they began to Quarter the surface.
They were looking for the people who’d attacked their installation.
Morn saw the ship’s guns swivel as they came to bear. Tranquil Hegemony intended to blast her enemies off the face of the rock.