Shit, with those odds, Angus gave the kid about five more seconds—
Vector and Dios would have to fend for themselves. Angus concentrated on the armed Amnion.
Wrenching himself to a new trajectory, he fired both lasers simultaneously. Guided by computer calculations and zone implants and terror, precise as an infernal machine, he burned one Amnioni through the head; ripped open the chest of another—
—and jammed his hips to the side so that he careened away in a mad tumble, slewing insanely through the sudden roar of the impact guns aimed at him.
“Angus!” Davies yelled, so fiercely that he might have torn his vocal cords. “By God!”
Impelled by his jets, Davies dove at a cable, caught hold of it and swung; drove his boots like pistons into the face of the nearest Amnioni firing at Angus.
Angus lashed out with another double burst of coherent force. He should have been out of control; disoriented by his cartwheeling flight; spin-drunk; unable to see. But he was a master of zero-g combat: he’d spent decades training for fights that involved hurtling mass, evasive maneuvers, abrupt attack. And his programming didn’t suffer the confusion of sensory input. Both his lasers gutted another Amnioni before the creature could adjust its aim.
Over and over again Davies hammered hisplastic dirk into the throat of thelast armed alien. Thick blood sprayed his faceplate and suit as he pounded his blade at the creature’s life. Maybe he couldn’t see; didn’t know the Amnioni was already dead. Maybe he couldn’t see its impact gun drifting past him a meter from his head.
Strangled rage echoed in Angus’ helmet.
Angus hauled on his jets, struggled to stabilize his trajectory. Too late he saw the rough trunk of a gantry rush at his head. With a yowl of propulsion and panic, he snatched himself aside.
The trunk struck him a glancing blow as he passed. His head snapped backward. For a fraction of a second, his vision turned gray at the edges; melted toward darkness. Then his computer tightened its grip on the neural network of his cortex, jerked him back from unconsciousness.
His sight sprang clear to a glare of damage alerts from his internal indicators. Atmosphere hissed past his cheeks. He found himself staring at a crack that ran through his faceplate from top to bottom. His mouth and lungs tasted the acrid bite of Amnion air.
His suit had lost vacuum integrity. He was stuck aboard Calm Horizons.
ShitshitshitChrist!
“Angus!” Vector’s voice croaked in his ears. “Davies is in trouble!”
Cursing savagely, Angus wheeled against his inertia; saw an Amnioni attach itself to Davies from behind and start twisting his head off. Blinded by blood, Davies hadn’t seen the creature coming. A rifle floated out of reach in front of him.
Angus had lost track of the last Amnioni—and didn’t waste time worrying about it. Risking a precious second, he skidded sideways to improve his angle of fire. Then he slagged Davies’ attacker through the center of its misshapen skull.
Davies flopped free of the Amnioni, twitching as if his neck were broken.
Angus’ panic struck so swiftly that he couldn’t name it. The man he’d become seemed to have no choice: instead of whirling to scan the hold, locate the last creature, make sure Vector and Dios hadn’t lost their grip on Vestabule, he flung himself toward his son.
Before he’d covered half the distance, Vector cried out another warning.
Angus ignored him; ignored the danger. In a dumb confusion of alarm and relief, he watched Davies slowly raise one hand, wipe a smear of blood off his faceplate, then reach out for the impact gun drifting near him.
His neck wasn’t broken. He couldn’t have moved like that with a crushed or severed spinal cord.
Before Angus remembered Vector’s warning, an Amnioni with at least twice his mass slammed into him like the rock-shattering punch of a mine-hammer.
The impact drove the air from his lungs: for an instant it overwhelmed his zone implants. More arms than he could count wrapped themselves around him. Hands he couldn’t see grappled for his cutters. One of his lasers was forced out of his fist.
He let it go. Desperately he fought to twist in the Amnioni’s grasp so that he could bring his other gun to bear before the creature hit him with a blaze of focused flame.
Even his welded strength was no match for the Amnioni’s. He didn’t have enough arms to struggle adequately. But struts reinforcing his joints gave him leverage: terror and zone implants augmented his natural muscle. Too late, too slowly, he shifted against the creature’s embrace. Give him two more seconds, and he would be able to reach his assailant’s torso with his laser.
He didn’t have two seconds. At the edge of his ruined faceplate, he saw the Amnioni aim its laser at the side of his helmet from point-blank range.
Without realizing what he did, he screamed in fury and horror—a howl from the bottom of his soul.
Deafened by his own cry, he didn’t hear the bark of the impact rifle as Davies fired.
The gun’s force wailed across his prosthesis—a yell of energy as vivid as his terror, but more effective. The neural convulsion as the Amnioni died gripped him tight, then flung him free. Momentarily stunned, he tumbled away.
His helmet speakers reported Davies’ voice.
“Angus? Angus! Are you all right?”
Davies sounded concerned. That amazed Angus as much as the fact that he was still alive.
Because he knew how Davies felt, he coughed into his pickup, “Can’t you tell? I thought I was still screaming.”
He slowed himself with a twitch of one hip; controlled his flight so that he could look around the hold.
“God, Angus,” Davies returned weakly, drained by exertion or relief, “that was close. I didn’t think we—What took you so long? Another minute and we were finished.”
A moment later he groaned, “Oh, shit. Angus, your faceplate—It’s cracked.” Shock stretched his voice to a whisper. “And we only have one spare suit.”
The suit Angus still carried strapped to his back.
Gasping against the harsh cut of the Amnion air, Angus nudged the jet waldo to change directions. The alerts inside his helmet were going crazy: dehydration and hyperthermia; lost atmosphere. With a jerk of one hand, he canceled the status displays, shut down all the suit’s systems except air and temperature regulation. The circuits and readouts were useless to him now. If he wanted to survive, he would have to take risks so extreme that they violated every condition the suit’s designers had ever imagined.
Or he would have to use the suit he’d brought for Dios; let the bastard die here.
Fervently he wished that he was still capable of abandoning the UMCP director. Short days ago he could have done it easily; without a qualm. He might have enjoyed it. And he’d been released from the programmed restrictions which kept him from harming UMCP personnel: he should have been able to leave Dios behind. Hell, he should have been able to kill the motherfucker himself. But other inhibitions held him, as compulsory as his datacore.
Inspired by dread, he searched one database after another for alternatives.
“Angus,” Vector panted urgently, “we need to get out of here. This ship is moving.” New g and the distant yowl of thrust made that obvious. “We still have to deal with Vestabule. And there must be more Amnion on the way.”
Angus didn’t doubt that. Vestabule had what must have been a PCR jacked into his ear. He made guttural sounds Angus couldn’t translate. Calling for help—
Beyond the bulkheads, matter cannon fried the dark. If Mikka and the fat man screwed up now—
With all his alerts and indicators dead, Angus turned between the gantries; rode his jets back toward Vector, Dios, and Vestabule.
Vestabule had stopped struggling. In fact, Dios had let him go. Davies drifted in front of him, gripping an impact rifle with its muzzle aligned on his chest.
The accumulating g of thrust pulled them all slowly toward the deck as they confronted each other. They would have fa
llen already if Calm Horizons hadn’t been handicapped by slow brisance drives.
One of Davies’ hands was bare. The sulfurous illumination made his skin seem unnaturally vulnerable—closer to death than the Amnion corpses settling as Calm Horizons gathered momentum. Other than that, his suit appeared intact. So did Vector’s. Angus couldn’t tell what condition his companions were in: reflection and polarization hid their faces.
But Dios was completely exposed—defenseless without an EVA suit. He looked pale and strained, bleached of strength, like a man with a concussion. A heavy blow had left a swelling lump over his eyepatch. Pain glazed his human eye, muffling its penetration, its light of command. Nevertheless he watched Vestabule and Angus without flinching.
Angus was dimly surprised to find that he recognized Vestabule. Over the years he’d had too many victims: he couldn’t remember them all. Viable Dreams alone had carried twenty-seven other men and women. And he hadn’t known any of their names. Yet Vestabule’s face had stayed in his mind.
Marc Vestabule had fought so hard against being turned over to the Amnion that he’d almost killed Angus.
He was silent now. Any help he’d been able to summon was on its way. Angus searched his face for signs of the atavistic terror which had enabled him to retain vestiges of his humanity. But it was gone. Even the frantic signaling of his human eye revealed nothing.
“Angus Thermopyle,” he pronounced harshly, “you have done great harm.”
“I hope so,” Angus muttered. Obviously the Amnioni knew whom to blame for his defeat. But no amount of harm to the Amnion would compensate Angus for his ruined faceplate.
As their boots touched the deck, Vector sighed, “Shit, Angus. You can’t go outside like that. You’ll be dead before we leave the airlock.”
He hesitated for a moment or two, then offered regretfully, “I’ll stay. I’m surplus personnel anyway. And this tub won’t last much longer. I’ll die human. You can use my helmet.”
He raised his hands to the seals as if he were determined to sacrifice himself somehow.
“It will not be forgotten,” Vestabule stated.
Angus forestalled Vector. “Fuck that.” His zone implants helped him master his breathing. He knew all his suit’s design parameters, every detail of its construction. “We’ve got other things to worry about. And we haven’t run out of options yet.”
The more Calm Horizons accelerated, the harder it would be for Ubikwe to hold the command module and Trumpet in position. But the defensive needed all the force she could generate for her guns, shields, and sinks. And her thrust was inherently slow. She couldn’t acquire velocity quickly.
“The Amnion will not forget it,” Vestabule continued.
Angus wished the Amnioni would shut up.
He unclosed his own helmet and took it off so that he could face Dios without the obstruction of his faceplate. At once the full acid of Calm Horizons’ atmosphere bit into his lungs. Spasms of revulsion tightened in his chest; but his zone implants controlled them.
Warden Dios had called him a machina infernalis. He’d said, We’ve committed a crime against your soul.
And he’d said, It’s got to stop.
Now he was at Angus’ mercy. He’d released the restrictions that might have compelled Angus to spare him.
He waited without speaking under Angus’ scrutiny, as if he knew he was being judged. Angus almost believed that the UMCP director was a man of his word.
“While you live,” Vestabule intoned, “the Amnion will seek your death. There will be no haven for you in any space, at any time. You will never be safe. Nor will any shred or particle of your DNA be allowed to endure. The offspring which you name your son will not be forgotten. Every inheritor of your flesh will be remembered for death.”
Angus didn’t so much as glance at the Amnioni. Threats like that meant nothing to him.
“You kept one promise,” he told Dios roughly. “Let’s see you do it again.”
With a flick of his hand, he tossed his laser cutter to the man who’d framed him and reqqed him so that he could be welded.
Dios caught the laser in his fist, settled it into his palm; glanced at it to confirm that it still held a charge. Then he met Angus’ gaze again. He seemed to understand the question he was being asked. But he didn’t answer it directly.
Instead he countered, “Do you think this is why I set you free?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Angus rasped.
Dios sighed. “I told Davies and Dr. Shaheed already,” he said carefully through his breathing mask. “You were right. He gave me a mutagen.” A twitch of his free hand referred to Vestabule. “As soon as I run out of immunity, I’m finished.”
A suggestion of hope fluttered in Vestabule’s human eye. The Amnion side of his face awaited his fate without expression.
Angus said nothing. Davies and Vector remained silent. They knew as well as he did that they couldn’t save Dios. They’d used the last of Nick’s antimutagen to protect themselves.
With an effort, Dios blinked some of the blur from his eye. His tone sharpened. Lines of command and mortality etched his face. “I’m sure Calm Horizons hasn’t been passive during this little raid. What happened to Suka Bator?”
He might have asked, How many lives have you spent to rescue me?
Angus snorted: he was too frightened to laugh. “You heard the blast. The big one. Right before I came in. That was their proton emitter. I sprayed it full of hull sealant.
“They still have matter cannon, but we’re the only hostages they’ve got left.”
Make up your mind, he demanded mutely. Kill one of us. While there’s still time. Show us where you stand.
A fierce grin lifted the edges of Dios’ mask. “I swear to God, Angus,” he drawled trenchantly, “sometimes I’m so proud of you and Morn I almost forget to be ashamed of myself.”
His fist tightened on the cutter’s firing stud. Precise as a cyborg, he drilled red fire straight through the center of Marc Vestabule’s face.
Vestabule’s human eye seemed to widen in surprise as he toppled backward. His lifeless form measured the extent to which he’d been betrayed on the rough deck.
Davies seemed to slump inside his suit. “Thank God,” he breathed thinly.
A strange pang of relief and regret touched Angus’ heart. At last Warden Dios had committed himself.
Which seemed to imply that he’d decided he would be the one to stay behind.
That made sense. He was beyond saving: Vestabule had accomplished that, if nothing else. He was the logical candidate.
Angus should have been glad. He was glad. He needed Dios’ helmet. Nevertheless the man he’d become felt the loss of something more precious than an undamaged faceplate. He was afflicted by the same cutting sense of bereavement which had confused him a long time ago when he beat up Morn: the sense that he diminished himself by exacting his own fear from someone else.
“We’re out of time, Angus,” Vector put in tensely. “That module wasn’t made for maneuvers like this. And even if Captain Ubikwe can hold his position, one of our ships might hit him.
“We’ve come this far. Let’s finish it.”
“No,” Davies contradicted at once. “He won’t get hit. Director Donner said she’ll hold fire until we’re clear.”
Maybe he still hoped they could think of some way to save Dios.
“That’s a lot to ask,” Vector murmured dubiously. “She’s ED.”
“But she keeps her promises,” Dios stated without hesitation. “That’s one of at least six things I love about her.”
He sounded oddly cheerful, almost happy, like a man whose attempt at restitution was nearly complete.
He tossed the laser cutter back to Angus; then approached Vestabule’s corpse and hunted in the Amnioni’s pockets until he found a small vial. A wry grin twisted his mouth as he showed the vial to Angus, Davies, Vector.
It contained at least half a dozen small capsules.
/>
“Things aren’t as bad as they look. Each of these lasts an hour. I’ll stay human long enough.”
Long enough to reach UMCPHQ, where DA had more of the antimutagen Hashi Lebwohl had given Nick.
Oh, shit, Angus groaned. Shit and damnation. Abruptly his relief and regret flip-flopped; became stark panic and resolve.
Dios wanted to go with them.
Someone else would have to stay behind.
Or Angus would have to take a risk so desperate that the mere idea made his guts slosh like water.
The man he’d become seemed to have no choice. In one swift motion he unslung the extra EVA suit from his back, tossed it to Dios. “Put this on,” he ordered through his teeth. “Fast. Vector’s right. The fat man won’t be able to hold his position for long.”
And Vestabule must have called for help.
“Wait a minute,” Davies objected. “Does that mean you want Vector to stay behind?”
The tension in his voice suggested that he thought he should volunteer for another sacrifice.
“No,” Angus snapped bitterly. “It means I want you to shut the fuck up and let me concentrate.”
He knew everything the UMCP knew about his EVA suit; every tolerance and molecule. According to his databases, he should be able to—
His EM prosthesis was useless now. He would have to trust his human sight—and the machine accuracy of his computer. A millimeter too much, and his faceplate would be too weak to hold. A millimeter too little, and the cracks wouldn’t be sealed. Either way, the plexulose would blow out at the first touch of vacuum.
Either way, he would be effectively blind when he died.
Gripping his helmet in the crook of his arm, he set the cutter to its lowest power, its widest beam, and began to stroke coherent crimson across the surface of the faceplate, melting and fusing plexulose along the worst of the cracks.
God, this was stupid. No way in hell it could ever work. His databases insisted this kind of plexulose could be laser-formed. Sculptors used it because they could cut and shape it without stressing the molecular lattice. But no one had ever tried to restore a faceplate’s integrity by hand.