Mary Rosenblum (37 page)

Earth had a huge hole in its defenses, Dane thought. He leaned forward because they were approaching the next hole on their spiral sweep.

Nothing. His ship’s voice sounded as tense as he felt.

Big stuff wasn’t supposed to get inside the net. Fast and maneuverable as they were, a dozen jocks would have to work together to bust a killer asteroid and they didn’t have the heat shielding to take atmosphere. They’d have a limited time to react.

And if the ship doing the pushing was armed … Two more holes came up blank. And then …

… he felt her. Ahni. Lost her. Dane strained for that whisper of contact, that faint echo of her thought.

He had never really figured out the range of empathic contact. It seemed to vary quite a bit.

He groped until his head ached, couldn’t find her. Just as he was beginning to think he had imagined it . .

. he felt it again. A brief bright flicker of ‘aha’ came and went. They were out there, she and Kyros. And they had found the rock.

He called her, eyes closed, straining to reach her until he thought his head would explode. Wasn’t sure if he had made contact or not, lost her again. “Start looking hard,” he told his ship. “I think they were in the next hole. Plot a trajectory from the hole to orbit … something benign that won’t wake up a security probe.”

Plotting,the ship murmured.
They could pick up a tourist trail and end up well inside Platform orbit.

They’d look like one of those big luxury liners.

Bingo! Someone had put a lot of clear thought into this. The luxury liners were big floating hotels for the high-end paying guests who wanted to play at living in microG for a couple of days in utter comfort. They offered rooms with satin-lined padded walls and special features to let honeymoon couples do downside sex, water rooms, where you wore a breather and played among flying spherelets of water, fancy viewing rooms. The rock would be bigger than a liner, but if it behaved like a liner, in all probability, nobody would notice.

“I assume you’re listening, Li Zhen,” Dane said out loud. “I think we found it.”

He’s listening. Miriam gave a very human sniff.

“I think it’s following a tourist liner trajectory. That will take it well inside Dragon Home’s orbit and that much closer to atmossphere when it starts its descent. Looks like our rock dropper picked your turf, Zhen. I might be wrong but we’re close. Better call out the guard.”

They passed the next hole. “Can you access the nearest liner route?” Most of the operators reserved routes with the platform traffic departments. That way, they had right of way over random traffic.

Got it, Miriam said cheerfully.

Nothing. They slid along beside Dragon Home’s curve. It was a lot longer than NYUp, with a larger population. It blocked out the sun and Earth’s blue disk and the stars blazed coldly. In the far distance, Dane caught a glimpse of New Singapore’s solar collectors gleaming in the sun.

There they are.

Dane suppressed a moment of nausea as his ship zoomed in on the tiny image in the distance. It resolved into a rock that looked like a pebble. Until you noticed the small matte black ship body next to it. The dull sheen of a second ship, smaller than the tug annchored to the rock, caught his eye. “Closer zoom,” he snapped.

That’s all you get without losing resolution, his ship sounded huffy. But it was enough. He recognized Kyro’s green celtic-knot glyph on the hull.

Kyros’ ship, Miriam confirmed. His
ship just answered my ID call.

At that moment, light winked on the tug.

Missile, Miriam said sharply.
It got ‘em
.

White light blossomed and his ship’s eyes zoomed out, filters darkening the glare instantly. Dane blinked, red blotching his sight. As his vision cleared, he squinted, trying to spot Kyros’s ship. Praying that his ship had been wrong.

Nothing there. A few bits of debris drifted. One jagged chunk bore a green streak … part of the hull and the celtic knot.

Dane put his face in his hands.

“OKAY, I BOUGHT IN.” BREATHING HARD. KYROS LET THE ship rest in the fifth hole they had checked. “You believe somebody is gonna drop a rock and I believe you. But I want to know who’s going to be shooting at me.”

“They might not shoot.” Ahni winced and rubbed the purpling bruise across her shoulder. They had been playing hide and seek with the security beams because Kyros didn’t have an updated Low-Orbit license, just an up-and-down permit. Something to do with forgetting to pay transport tariffs on some merchandise he moved between Dragon Home and New Singapore he had told her. At least she barely noticed her ankle any more. Everything else hurt a lot more. “They might figure nobody would guess until it was too late.”

“You don’t know squat,” Kyros growled and fished a water squeeze from a net above his head. “You don’t push a rock around without a shipkiller.”

Nice name. “Can I have some when you’re finished?” She snagged the squeeze as he sailed it her way and gulped the tepid water, trying not to think that it tasted like old sweat. Her stomach was having enough trouble. “It’s my brother. And … my friend.”

“You keep nice company, kid” Kyros shook his head as she sailed the empty water bulb back to him.

“What do they get out of it?”

“The end of the Platforms.” She sighed, and stretched her senses, feeling for any echo of Tania.

And there she was.

Ahni turned her head. “That way.” Eyes closed, she pointed at the source of that contact, the fuzzy, rich, tactile sense of Tania.

Kyros grunted. “You sure? ID is a luxury liner. You maybe feelling that?”

“No.”

“Well, at least Security won’t be combing the tourist track. Not as much anyhow. Although if that’s really them, then maybe a Security hit or two wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

Ahni kept her eyes closed, focusing on the magnet-tug of Tania ahead.

”You’re right. It’s not a liner.” Kyros laughed dryly. “That was a cute trick, using the tourist trail to slip down inside Platform orbit. He gambled that nobody inside would look our direction, but heck, most of the ‘windows’ in the Platforms are fake anyway. The sun could go nova and you wouldn’t know till the wave front fried you.”

A big patch of hull went transparent. There it was, straight ahead, a big chunk of rock, gray and battered in the harsh light from Sol. It didn’t look big until you spied the small ship anchored to it, pushing it along.

“That’s a tug,” Kyros said absently. “Moves the balloons around once the miners drop ‘em, moves the barges around, in Platform orbit. Lots of power, not a lot of size. Sort of a big engine with a pilot onboard. No frills. They’ll brake, I guess, using the bulk of the rock to keep Dragon Home here from noticing that kind of hard burn this close. I guess they’ll bail out before they get into the atmosphere too far, use escape pods, probably and have somebody pick ‘em up. Let the rock and tug go down on their own from there on out. Time to suit up, girl. Just in case.” He pulled a slick wad of fabric from a net and tossed it in her direction.

Ahni caught it. “Won’t somebody see them and shoot them down?” She started pulling on the vacuum suit. The flimsy, thin feel of the nano-fabric made her skin crawl, never mind that she knew it could do the job. “Somebody has to notice something this big falling out of the sky.”

“Oh sure.” Kyros pulled his own suit on and sealed it in about thirty seconds. “But the rock jocks won’t have time to intercept beefore they get into atmosphere and start to heat up.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Call in the marines.” Kyros touched shimmering icons, his scarred fingers glowing faintly blue-green in the light from Earth. “I’m sending a mayday. That’ll get us some body’s attention, probaably on Dragon Home since we’re in its shadow. Good thing you speak Chinese. Let’s hope Mr. Chairman remembered to tell the crew manning communications that we might be yelling for help here.”

“Kyros, she knows we’re here.”

“The tug couldn’t have seen us yet. Here we go.” He broke off as the holo of a Cantonese-faced woman in a Dragon Home apppeared in the cabin in front of them and briskly asked Kyros what his problem was.

Before Ahni could speak, the woman’s face fractured into a milllion bits of light, then winked out.

“Damn, damn, damn.” Kyros swiped a fist through the empty holofield. “Tugs don’t have that kind of hardware. Somebody thinks over there. You’re right. They did see us. They’ve got a tight beam silencer like the pirates use and they just wrecked our communications. They want to make sure we don’t tell anybody.”

Incoming. A voice spoke urgently.
Three minutes to impact. Evasive maneuver initiating now
. Ahni grabbed for the nets as the ship shied like a frightened horse, then veered again.
Evasion failure,
clossing, four minutes to impact.

“Four?” Kyros looked baffled. “They’re slowing down?”

Hello, Ahni. Tania’s sultry voice filled the cabin.
I’m controlling the missiles. You have one minute to
climb into an escape pod. I have just sent a nav-file to the ship-mind. Have your pods set it as the
default and I’ll pick you up. Do anything else and I’ll hole your pods. Your ship is gooing to die and
if you wish to remain on board, that is your choice.

Kyros swore softly in a language Ahni didn’t recognize. Then he grabbed her arm, released her webbing with a practiced wrench. “Let’s go.” He hauled her with him across the cramped space, slapped a palm against the hull. The hull melted open to reveal two narrow, padded spaces. A plastic bubble seemed embedded in the top of each. Escape pods. She had seen vids on the climber ride up about how to use them if needed.

”The helmet seals to your suit automatically,” Kyros was saying.

A blinking red light on a tiny control screen bothered her.

“That says the bitch really did ram a download into my system. Let’s hope it takes us somewhere besides the sun.”

Ahni scrambled into the narrow space, ducking her head into the helmet, the padding pressing against her. The hull melted back into place and the padding pressed harder against her so that she couldn’t move. A sudden warmth and pressure at her neck and shoulders startled her and then a breath of cool air on her face tickled the sweaty space between her breasts. That must have been the helmet sealing into place. How much longer before they ejected? She stilled a sudden wild urge to struggle, claw at the padding. Summoned Pause until her heart rate began to slow. Felt a prick on her throat.

Oh yeah. She had forgotten. The pods put you out until you were picked up. “No,” she said sharply, but the pod didn’t respond.

Vibration shivered through her and a sudden rush of acceleration made her think of the giant roller-coaster in the huge floating amusement park in the bay off of Hong Kong. Nothing to see. Gentle, directionless light filled her helmet space, and the injection caught her like an unexpected roller on a flat beach, sweeping her up and over and away down a long dark tunel

SHE WOKE FROM dark things that leered at her just out of sight. Blinked crusted eyes, smelled metal and sweat and …

Remembered missiles, the pods, the needle prick as the pod anaesthetized her. Her throat itched where the needle went in. She tried to rub it, tried to sit up, couldn’t bring her arms up. Netting held her fast.

She twisted, looking for Kyros in a moment of panic. Found him next to her, his wrists and ankles bound with webbing, both of them held to the wall by a cargo net. His eyes were closed, but he was pretending unconsciousness.

Xai and Tania hung in hammocks beside them in the tiny cabin.

As if Tania felt her gaze, she released the webbing and pulled herself around to face Ahni.

Ahni closed her eyes, summoning control. When she opened them, Tania floated in front of her, a handful of centimeters away. The familiar scents of ginger and coconut made her shiver.

“I wish you had listened to me,” Tania said sadly. “Why did you have to get mixed up with this?”

“I don’t understand.” She looked beyond Tania, found Xai grinning at her. “How did you get involved in this? You’re no Gaiist.”

”No, but we do share some goals.” His grin broadened. “I told you our father is never going to see me as anything but a spare part, and as long as he functions, I’ll sit on the shelf. I’ve been keeping an eye on the bio-tech research–the stuff that doesn’t come out in the media. The high-end private labs are on the verge of a breakthrough, Little Sister. By making use of stem cell implantation and a little genen retrofitting, you can replace worn out parts and keep those telomeres from measuring out the end of days. Within a decade, our esteemed father will have the option of living forever. I suspect he will embrace that option.” Xai’s grin had the look of a tiger’s hungry snarl. “What does that mean for the spare part on the shelf, Little Sister? Do you have an answer for that?”

“Do you have to have it all, Xai?” Ahni looked away. “Never mind. You do. You are your father, after all.”

“Yes.” Xai’s smile was pleasant, but the red churn of his emotions was not. “And let me tell you how I will get it.”

“Not from dropping a rock onto Earth,” She hooked her fingers through the cargo netting, her body language distressed, but feeling for the fastener that held the net, for a hint of weakness that would give if she braced against the wall and really pushed.

“Oh, yes. Just so, dropping a rock.” Xai chuckled. “Li Zhen made a nice ally. Talk about someone blinded by his own ambitions.” He laughed outright. ”Tania introduced me to the Gaiists. You never reealized she was my lover, did you?” He grinned. “I thought not. Our mother had no problems with
that
arrangement.” He looked over at Tania and grinned. ”The Gaiists are as power hungry as I am but it’s a big planet. They had already laid the groundwork to fear the Platforms and NYUp’s little riots brought the media in to spread the word. Now we will confirm that fear, and in the meantime destroy the World Council.” His grin broadened. “So many obstacles will be simply … removed. Even when the rock is discovered, no one will expect it to have a target. And by the time the exact trajectory is plottted, it will be too late to entirely evacuate the population of the Council Island. Our father is there. So is Li Zhen’s. I am not sure he would approve of this, but it is never wise to share the entire picture. That is best kept to oneself. In the ensuing chaos, the Gaaists are positioned to claim a very large share of political and economic power courtesy of the anti-space backlash.”