Blind, alone, cocooned by a faltering Skin against an environment that would kill him in minutes, Lawrence Newton started laughing. All this—insane desperation—so that he could buy himself back into Amethi. The home he'd run away from so he could explore the universe. It was hard to remember now, but in those days Lawrence Newton had thought the stars were full of excitement and wonder. What was it he'd told Roselyn that first day they'd met?
Nowhere you live can be exotic. That's only ever somewhere else.
Now he knew: it was always somewhere else. If he'd been given the chance, that young Lawrence Newton would have kept on flying and never come back.
Did I really hate myself that much back then?
He smiled happily as his thoughts of Roselyn brought her image to the front of his mind, the one icon that never deserted him. His hand patted the base of his throat, feeling the small lump of the pendant pressing against his skin.
It would be nice to see her one last time.
The clouds swept clear when he was still a couple of kilometers from the end of the saddle plain, taking the snow with them. Stars gleamed brightly in the thin, clear air. Two centimeters of ice pellets lay across the ground. His Skin crunched them down as he trudged onward.
He had to use the last bloodpak before he finished traversing the saddle plain. The Skin had used up a lot of energy keeping him warm in the snow. When he sucked at the water nipple, the tank was empty. His tongue was dry inside his hot mouth. Pain was a constant in his side now, a fierce pulse at the center of a permanently cold hip. The anesthetic made no difference. He wasn't even sure the clotting agent was having any effect. The Skin leg was coated in blood. Its muscles couldn't keep the carapace puncture hole fully sealed anymore.
And still, he had no choice.
The ground began to dip away, and Lawrence could look down across the forested vales of Arnoon Province. It was quiet and beautiful in the starlight, just as he remembered it.
This side of Mount Kenzi was a scree slope that swept down steeply for over two kilometers. Lawrence began his descent. The small stones slid and skittered beneath his feet, clattering away out of sight. As he became used to the subsidence he used it to slide his way down, taking long hops, deliberately landing hard on his heels so the scree would give way underneath him. Time after time he lost his balance or hit a big rock and fell, skidding and sliding down the slope at the head of a miniature avalanche. Without Skin he would have been cut to shreds on the sharp little stones. But the carapace maintained its integrity easily: this kind of treatment was well inside its tolerance limits.
The scree gave way to tough grass. He started to walk down to the treeline several hundred meters below. His left leg was stiff, even with Skin muscles moving it. Several scree stones were stuck in the open puncture. He stopped to pick them out, then continued. Their absence didn't make any difference to the limp. The display revealed that an alarming amount of Skin muscle in his left leg had degraded to a nonviable level. When he checked, blood was still leaking down the leg. It must be coming from the wound inside. There was no clotting agent left.
He stopped when he reached the trees and bent over, trying to throw up. Nothing came, apart from a vile acidic juice that burned his already arid throat. His gills adjusted their filter parameters, feeding him a higher oxygen level. It made breathing a little easier.
The trees thickened quickly once he was inside the forest. But their trunks were never so close as to form a barrier. Undergrowth was a shaggy fern that his Skin legs pushed through with hardly any extra effort. The visibility was as bad here as in the snowstorm. He had to rely on inertial guidance again, following the indigo trail across the slope, always heading down.
Warmth slowly drained out of him, seeping away through the puncture hole in the Skin. His fingers were icy, his feet blocks of ice. Nothing he could do would stop the shivering. The display wanted him to replenish the Skin's blood bladders. He sneered at it and told the Prime to clear the icons away. More medical warnings appeared, indicating the strain he was putting on his own organs now that his body was having to reoxygenate the blood.
The trees came to an end. Lawrence moved forward with small, laborious steps. He was hunched up in an effort to ease the pain throbbing along his ribs. One hand was clamped over the puncture hole in the carapace.
He arrived at the top of the curving cliff. A hundred and twenty meters below, the black waters of the crater lake rippled gently. Low-light sensors turned the gloomy night vista to a glowing blue-and-gray image. He saw the central island. The little stone temple was still sitting at the center.
"Meditation my ass," Lawrence grunted at it, and jumped.
The carapace hardened protectively long before he hit the water. It was a jolt that sent an excruciating pain flaming out from his wounded hip. He screamed inside the helmet. For a moment he though he was about to throw up again. All he was really worried about was the depth of water at the foot of the cliff. Whatever it was, his feet never touched the bottom of the lake.
Low-light sensors showed him faint gray bubbles swarming around him as he slowly floated to the surface. Then he was bobbing about, trying to see where the island was. Once he found it, he brought his legs up so he was floating on his back. His feet kicked slowly, aided by the occasional flap of his arms. He instructed the Prime to make the Skin muscles follow the motions he wanted. His own limbs weren't responding very well. The result wasn't a particularly fast stroke, but he made steady progress.
He was about seventy meters from the island when something brushed against him. The carapace tactile sensors stroked his skin in mimicry of the contact. Lawrence flinched and held still, waiting for it to happen again. When nothing happened, he began kicking again, perhaps a little more urgently now. The fish-creature prodded his left leg. Lawrence shoved at it with his hand. A narrow, pointed head broke surface for a moment, then dived with a small splash.
Something touched him on the other leg. Two of them! He concentrated on kicking, keeping his feet below the surface for maximum effect. One of the fish-creatures slithered over his chest. It was similar to an eel, but pale green, over a meter long, with three ridges running the length of its body. They were vibrating softly.
"Shit!" Lawrence punched at it in panic. But it was too fast.
Pointed jaws with needle teeth worried their way into the puncture hole like a hammer drill. Lawrence chopped at the thing with the edge of his hand. Two more were nuzzling the puncture. He twisted over and started swimming side-stroke, keeping the puncture out of the water. One of the creatures tangled itself round his legs. The puncture was forced below water. Teeth began to bite into the exposed Skin muscle.
The carbine slid out of its recess. Lawrence angled it away from his leg and fired. Bullets chewed the water around the creatures. There was an eruption of spray, and they were gone.
Lawrence started swimming hard, shouting to counter the pain coursing through his body at each hurried motion. Ripples wriggled across the water, arrowing toward him. Several of the creatures were suddenly writhing all over him. Lawrence thrashed about, going under for a moment. Their jaws were tearing at the Skin muscle in the puncture, severing chunks of it. He used the carbine underwater, hearing a dull roar as it fired.
When his head came up, he could see the island thirty meters away. A biohazard alert flashed in the middle of his display. Some kind of toxin was seeping into the Skin's circulatory network. Prime determined the infection point as the muscle cords around the puncture.
They're poisoning me!
Just then one of the fish-creatures began to coil and convulse a few meters away, flinging spray in all directions. Two more started similar berserk motions.
Lawrence kept swimming. Prime closed the valves connecting his major blood vessels with the Skin. Another creature jabbed its head into the puncture. He shot at it.
Dozens of the creatures were racing through the water around him. They slid over and around the Skin. Lawrence's foot touch
ed a solid surface. He struggled for balance and waded out of the water. The creatures were charging around his legs, butting against the carapace. Prime was flashing up information on the toxin. It was spreading through the Skin's leg muscles. Secondary blood vessel valves were being closed, in an attempt to isolate it.
When his feet were finally out of the water, Lawrence managed two steps on the grass, and fell over. His legs wouldn't move, the weight of the inert Skin was too much.
Lawrence surveyed the status display. The toxin had contaminated over a third of the Skin's muscles. There was no blood reaching the rest. With a sob he gave the Prime his last order. The Skin split open smoothly along its chest seal. Lawrence whimpered as he pulled the helmet back off his head. Cool night air licked against his body. He pushed and wriggled, emerging slowly and painfully from the dead Skin like some glistening blue chrysalis. For a while it was all he could do to lie panting on the grass. Then his left hand felt its way along his side and probed at the wound. He grimaced, and slowly sat up.
The clotting agent had left a thin layer of white foam inside the wound, which was cracked and flaking. Blood was dribbling out, running down the slippery layer of dermalez gel. He pressed his hand against it, hoping the pressure would hold the bleeding until he could find something to use as a dressing.
Lawrence got to his feet and looked around. He could just make out the temple. Each step was forced, and he cried out more than once as he made his way over to the stone structure. When he got there, a section of the tiered seating had sunk away to reveal a staircase leading down. A weak light was shining at the bottom.
"I knew it," he mumbled.
He had to lean his shoulder on the wall for support as he stumbled down the stairs. Dermalez gel smeared an uneven trail along the stone as he went. Blood dripped continually through his fingers, splattering on the steps.
There was a small, empty room at the bottom, directly under the middle of the temple. A single metal door faced the stairs. It slid open as Lawrence hobbled toward it, revealing an elevator. He eased himself inside and found a control panel with just two buttons. The door slid shut when he jabbed the lower one.
There was a quiet whine as the elevator descended. The door opened to show a large hemispherical chamber with wall segments of dark copper-colored composite. Lawrence staggered out, not caring that he'd be seen. He just had to know what he'd been chasing. That was all. Nothing else mattered anymore.
In the middle of the chamber was a broad pedestal of milky glass, almost like an altar. A long ash-gray rock was resting on top, its surface pitted and blackened. The central section was draped in a gold mesh. The end pointing at the elevator had been cut and polished; clumps of small aquamarine crystal were sticking out of it, glowing lambently.
Lawrence squinted at the scene, not understanding any of it Two young women were standing in front of the pedestal. The older one gave him a sad smile, and said: "Welcome to the temple of the fallen dragon, Lawrence. Remember me?"
Lawrence grinned at her, and lost consciousness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Josep's thoughts came together quickly as he woke. For a second he kept his eyes closed while he assessed his position. He was lying on some kind of plastic cushioning. No clothes; his skin was pressed against the fabric. Slight pressure round his hips. A pair of boxer shorts, then. Cold metallic bands around his wrists, which were being held in place fifteen centimeters apart. Manacles of some kind. His legs were free. Artificial light on his eyelids. The distant clatter and murmur of a busy building.
When his d-written neurons tried to locate either his bracelet pearl or a local datapool node, all he could sense was some disjointed background signals that were almost below his threshold. It was as if the electromagnetic spectrum had been muted somehow. He put the odd perception down to the gas that they'd used to knock him out. Some of it must still be in his system, affecting his neural cells.
He opened his eyes. The room was a cell, four meters by four, no window, just a conditioning grille. He was lying on a bench opposite a heavy metal door. A small camera on the ceiling was angled down to look at him.
Cells in the spaceport security division were very similar. They might not have moved him yet. In which case he stood a chance. He knew the entire spaceport layout.
That thought made him pause. He hadn't known about the elevator. And there must have been at least one alarm that wasn't on any file they'd accessed when they were planning the break-in. Most likely it was something that Z-B had discreetly installed after they took control of the administration block. Even so, his Prime should have caught it going off.
Making a show of being slow and confused, he sat up, rubbing at his hair. The manacles made the movement difficult, He frowned at them. "What the hell..."
Nobody came in to explain. He padded over to the door. The tile floor was cold under his bare feet. "Hey!" He banged on the door. "Hey, what's going on here?" There were grazes on his knuckles where he'd hit the elevator doors. That could have been a mistake. If they measured the dent he'd made they could work out the force behind the blow. That would make them very interested in him. Not that they wouldn't be anyway. But he couldn't allow them to examine his body too closely. The patternform sequencers must be protected at all costs.
He padded back to the bench and sat down. It was standard procedure to let prisoners sweat for a while after they'd been captured, allow them to build up some anxiety. Not that such crudities would affect him. But he had to decide what to do next. The d-written cells in his cheeks and jaw had held their shape while he was unconscious. He still had Sket Magersan's face. Z-B would have checked with the real pilot. They'd know this was a serious sabotage attempt by a resistance group.
Interrogation by Z-B would inevitably involve medical diagnostics, probably including a full brain scan. The d-writing modifications were subtle, but with that sort of scan there was a high risk of exposure. And he wasn't entirely certain he could hold out against the drugs. His d-written neurons were hardly omnipotent and Z-B had been dealing with resistance movements across decades and dozens of planets. By now, their techniques and technology for extracting information would be formidable.
The choice was simple. The longer he remained captive, the lower his chances would be of escaping. If he was going to get out it would have to be before they fully realized what he was physically capable of.
That brought him back full circle to how they'd caught him in the first place. He started to go over the break-in right from the start.
It was another two hours before the cell door opened. Josep still hadn't worked out what he'd done to set off an alarm. Two guards came in, their navy-blue uniforms sporting a small Z-B insignia on the collar. Both of them wore helmets with tinted visors; they held long truncheons with shock prongs on the end.
A simple white one-piece suit was slung at him.
"Put that on," one of the guards said.
Josep picked it up and let it unroll. He held his arms up, shaking the manacles at them. "You'll need to take these off."
"Nice try. Just put it on."
The suit sleeves had a seam down the sides, fastened with studs. He struggled into the lower part of the garment, and one of the guards fastened the studs for him.
They marched him out into a short, curving corridor. Josep checked the length and height, and knew exactly where he was: administration block, third floor. The security division had a long section all to itself in the five-sided building. Floor blueprints rushed through his mind. The only ways in or out of this section were two elevators and an emergency fire exit. He couldn't use the elevators, they were code-guarded—not forgetting what happened last time he used an elevator in this building. The fire exit was the obvious route, but there were strong safeguards there as well.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"You'll see soon enough."
They were walking in the direction opposite the elevators. The only rooms ahead were the offices. They
must have set up their interrogation equipment in one of them. He still couldn't sense a signal from a datapool node.
They turned a corner. The walls of this corridor were lined with doors. He named them silently as they went past: departmental management, briefing one, two, and three, investigator lieutenant, finance. Josep swayed slightly to shift his balance and kicked at the guard on his left. It was a perfect aim, heel smashing into the man's kneecap. He yelled in pain and went down. The second guard slammed his truncheon into Josep's back, and the shock prongs flared, pumping a charge into him. His d-written cells resisted the blast of electricity—just keeping his nerve channels open. He turned and wrenched the truncheon from the guard's grip. The man grunted in surprise at the force. Then Josep stabbed the truncheon into his stomach. The guard staggered backward, doubling up before finally keeling over.
Josep jabbed the truncheon into the first guard's neck as he was trying to rise. He collapsed back onto the carpet. At the other end of the corridor two men in Z-B uniforms were shouting as they ran toward him. A shrill alarm went off, terribly loud in the confined space. The security AS must have seen the whole thing through the surveillance cameras.
Josep threw the truncheon at the two running men, then charged at the door to the finance office. It wasn't even locked. As he expected, Z-B didn't have any use for financial staff; the office was empty, abandoned for the duration. There were three desks lined up down the middle of the floor, cluttered with old memory chips and piles of hard copy. Desktop pearls were inactive. The wall opposite the door was tinted glass from floor to ceiling, facing out across the spaceport hangars. He rushed over to the last desk and heaved it into the air, then flung it at the glass wall. The toughened glass shattered, sending a blizzard of shards swirling outward. More alarms started up. The desk crashed down on the edge of the hole it had created, half of it still in the office. It wobbled unsteadily. Josep kicked it, sending it sliding out over the edge to smash into the flowerbeds three floors below.