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Authors: Jr. L. E. Modesitt

BOOK: Adiamante
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I dropped flat and used the overrides to kill the emergency red-lighting as well—about the only vestige of netcontrol left to me in the building's powerless maintenance levels.
Rrrrrrrttttttttt … .
Projectile fragments sprayed headhigh, then dropped to knee-high, uncomfortably close to my head.
As the echoes died away, I inched forward, hugging the right-hand side of the ramp and imitating a snake sliding down through the darkness toward its prey. I stepped-up hearing and metabolism.
Another click—signifying the magazine switch to solid projectiles—and another burst of solid slugs fragmented not that far overhead, as the cyb ducked out of the middle corridor and hosed the corridor again, the fragments imbedding in the receptive hard insulated finish of the corridor. If I'd been on the right side, I'd have gathered enough holes to qualify as an antique sieve or whatever.
When the pin clicked on the empty chamber, I
moved,
ignoring the pain and the knives of red that shot through me as muscles and nerves coordinated the step-up at the top edge of physical capability.
The cyb didn't even get his weapon up as a block before I reached him. Three blows were enough. Then I retched over the other side of the corridor, even before I released the overrides on the emergency lighting.
White flashes flickered across my vision for a moment, and I had to take a handful of deep breaths. After that, I looked down—wished I'd looked sooner.
The half-dead figure on the floor wore a cyb-originated
night-suit and matching goggles. The goggles hadn't helped that much because they were light-enhancers, and they're not that much good when there's no light. What bothered me most was the high thick collar and the helmet with the bulge at the back.
Despite the cyb's crushed throat and temple, his hands had begun to move, and to grasp for the holstered handgun. Good thing I was still in step-up, or I could have been dead or wounded.
“Compboost …” I muttered, and snapped his neck with my boot heel. Another wave of pain, nausea, and white dots washed across me, and I leaned against the corridor wall. There wasn't anything left in my gut to lose.
The man twitched one last time, but even the compboost couldn't revive someone with a smashed temple, or move the limbs of a body with a crushed spinal cord.
I staggered to the door to the lower ramps and manually locked the access from the lower levels. I didn't need any more witnesses to the carnage I was going to find elsewhere in the maintenance level.
“Crucelle, get a cleanup detail over here.” I pushed the net because the repeater system in the building was dead.
“Here?”
“Power level of the admin building.” I filled him in on the details.
“You can't keep this quiet, Ecktor.”
“Announce a malfunction, and two unfortunate deaths from the equipment failure. I'm the only one here.”
“Who's on the net?”
“Anyone who could be on this level should know better than to spread rumors.” That was both statement and threat, and anyone who had the ability to infiltrate the uppernet should have understood both. Besides, anyone on that level would use net-to-net, and my concern was not letting the draff community know immediately, especially
after the mess between Majer Henslom and Nislaki that I still hadn't resolved.
I left the dead cyb where he was and went to the main boards. The trail of smashed composite and plastic covers was obvious enough. So were the two dead draff techs. I had seen both before, but didn't know either the man or woman by name. The cybs still viewed the draffs as cattle, and that bothered me. They hadn't learned anything in millennia.
“Crucelle. There are three. One of theirs, and two of ours. Let Locatio know. They'll try something there tomorrow, most likely while I'm out doing the prairie dog town.”
“To see if the response is the same elsewhere?”
“That's my guess.”
“Mine, too. What do you want done?”
“If it's possible, I want the next one to disappear without a sign.”
“We'll try.” A pause followed. “It'll be another fifteen before we're there.”
“That's fine. I'll do what I can.”
Although it hadn't been that long since I'd done mech maintenance, I felt like I fumbled my way to finding the bypasses and getting partial power back into the building, enough for light and the basic net.
The cyb had been very crude. He'd just started smashing things, and if you smash enough things, something usually breaks, and someone investigates. That was what he, or his superiors, had had in mind. It was crude—designed to prod us—and not even designed to be successful. It was designed more to see our response, both technically and politically.
We weren't going to provide any obvious response, but the compboost would have relayed more than I would have liked.
I dropped out of step-up, trying not to shake too hard,
found some supplies, and cleaned up the personal mess I'd made, then waited until Crucelle arrived with three others. One muscular woman I didn't know stayed by the door.
His red hair highlighted Crucelle all the way down the maintenance ramp, with Gerag and Indire behind him. They carried equipment satchels and a rolled package that would turn into three opaque and grim-looking bags long enough for the bodies.
“There's a maintenance truck by the loading dock,” Crucelle explained, a hint of pain in the deep green eyes. I worried that he was too sensitive, that his formality would not insulate him enough from what would ensue.
Gerag and Indire slipped past us and headed toward the mainboards.
“When you get an I.D. check, let Keiko know, and she'll notify the families—or mates.”
“What about you?” asked Crucelle.
“I have to see a majer about the conduct of his marcybs.”
“Lucky you. How's the satellite system?” He gestured skyward.
“Delta's still out, and Rhetoral's fuming.”
“How long? Can we afford to wait?” asked Arielle over the net like the gathering storm she could be.
“They still haven't done anything, not to justify that. Do you want to destroy every demi on Old Earth?” I asked softly.
“Why are we so vulnerable that way?” mused Crucelle. “Sometimes it doesn't seem so pro-survival.”
“It's been that way from The Flight. You know that as well as I do, and it's not individually pro-survival.”
“Damned genes.”
“We are what we are.” What that was happened to be another question, and now wasn't the time to ask or try to answer it. The only problem was that there wasn't any incentive to answer it except in times of crisis.
I walked up the ramp.
The muscular demi nodded. “You want this sealed until they're done, Coordinator?”
“Yes. Until Crucelle's happy with how things look.”
She nodded, and I stepped out into the main floor corridor.
Thirty draffs waited. I thought I saw Miris in the back.
“We've had a power interruption,” I began, stating the obvious. “For some reason, there were some explosions, and we have a team investigating. Leader Crucelle or I will let you know when we have a better idea of exactly what happened.” I hated the lie, but waited.
“How about the … technicians?”
“We should know shortly,” I temporized. “There's at least one fatality, but I won't speculate further right now because we don't know how far the damage went.”
“When was the last time this sort of incident occurred?” asked Miris from the back of the group. Trust him to ask something like that.
“At least several decades,” I answered, except it was more like several dozen decades. “We'll let you know.”
“Majer Henslom?” I asked Keiko on the net, glad that I didn't have to push the transmission, because I was exhausted, and my legs felt like lead as I climbed the stairs back to the office.
“He sent a messenger to indicate that he could be found at the residence bloc.” Her response was acid-tinged.
“Insolence to provoke a response which they can then use as a self-justifying pretext to apply massive force to us.” I paused. “Pass all of this on to the Committee, and make sure Elanstan and Rhetoral know, and K'gaio, Locatio—they'll try something there—and Crucelle and Arielle. Don't hit Crucelle until he finishes down below.”
Keiko had some cheese and crackers laid out on a platter in the middle of the big desk when I reached the third
floor. Beside the platter was a mug of high energy concentrate.
“Eat something before you go. You haven't eaten since before dawn.”
“How do you know?” I snapped.
She just looked at me—black on gray—and I had to grin. Then I ate some crackers, and took a slow swallow from the mug. The concentrate tasted like acidified mud, except mud tasted better because it was buffered. I didn't quite gulp my way through it all, but there wasn't anything left before long.
“Thank you,” I admitted.
“You're welcome, Coordinator.”
I glanced out the windows. High hazy clouds were beginning to form, a sign that the weather would change again, probably with snow in a day or two.
“Now to see Majer Henslom.” Not that I wanted to, but, if I saw him, I could restrict the insolence to a present issue and make myself the focus, rather than requiring him to assault someone else.
I decided to dramatize the issue more and pulled off my plain leather working jacket and replaced it with Arielle's black cloak.
“Good luck,” offered Keiko as I stepped out of the office.
“If I don't get shot on the spot, that will be luck enough.”
“Stop trying to avoid doing your comptime.” But her smile was little more than perfunctory and revealed more than it concealed.
Even I didn't want to avoid it that much.
There were still draffs milling around on the lower level when I went down, but no one asked me anything more. They looked, but they knew I'd said what I was going to say. That was the way it was.
Outside, I didn't need to close the cloak, not with the
calm and the slight warming. I walked eastward, taking another look at the statue of the unknown draff caught in the mindblaze.
“Neither to threaten nor to destroy in anticipation.” The credo drawn from the Construct made life difficult at times like these, damned difficult.
“Of those to whom much is given is much required.” Those were Morgen's words, her way of accepting the Construct, words taken from something much older.
I shook my head and kept walking.
With my net full out, I could sense the transmissions as soon as I was in sight of the residence bloc. I almost wished I hadn't worn the black cloak, but part of the job of Coordinator was being the most visible target. That supposedly allowed everyone else to get on with the work. I hoped it worked that way, but I had my doubts.
“ … demi on the way … moving quickly. The one in that black cloak. He's alone.”
“Majer … the demi's headed in …”
“I'll go out and greet him.”
As the transmissions promised, Henslom came out of the residence bloc to greet me. “Coordinator.”
“Majer Henslom. I understand you've been having discipline problems with your troops.”
“I don't know of any.”
“Oh?” I paused. “Then you
ordered
your marcyb to strike Nislaki this morning?”
“I don't recall issuing any such order.” Henslom's eyes narrowed with the lie. Either he had, or one of the junior marcyb officers had forced the attack on Nislaki. The marcyb couldn't have made such a statement unaided.
“Then, if you didn't order it, you must have a discipline problem—unless, of course, your standing orders permit the abuse of bystanders.” I smiled. “They don't, do they?”
Henslom stood silently for a moment, but he didn't use his net.
I waited.
“You know, honored Coordinator, I do believe I understand the reasons for The Flight somewhat more personally.” He still smiled, thinking he had deceived me.
“Perhaps you do. Now … about your discipline problem. I believe Nislaki would accept a written apology from you, since you are the responsible party, and I would suggest that the guilty party be returned to his ship—immediately. If you have a problem with scheduling a lander, we would be more than happy to supply transportation.”
The majer was seething. That I could tell, but he also didn't have the backing of his superiors—not yet. And moving one marcyb body wouldn't change a thing. My intuit senses all said that now was not the time to acknowledge the cybs' accomplishments with their troops.

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