Norton, Andre - Anthology (27 page)

 
          
 
Erica swiveled to glare at him. "You keep
this to yourself, Jay!" she snapped. Then she turned back to Dick.
"Spill it!" she ordered.

 
          
 
"SCat's ship was hijacked, probably by
smugglers," he said quickly. "He hid his support ball in an access
tube, and he was in it when they blew the lock. They missed him in the sweep,
and when they brought their prize in here, he got away. But they know he's
gone, and they know he can ID them."

 
          
 
"And they'll be giving the hairy eyeball
to every ship with a black cat on it." She bit her knuckle—and Jay added
his own two credits' worth.

 
          
 
"I hate to say this, but they've probably
got a telltale on the BioTech data files, so they know whenever anyone accesses
them. It's not restricted data, so anyone could leave a telltale." The
man's face was pale beneath his normally dusky skintone. "If they don't
know you've gone looking by now, they will shortly."

 
          
 
They all looked at each other. "Who's
still on board?" Dick asked, and gulped.

 
          
 
Erica's mouth formed a tight, thin line.
"You, me, Jay and the cats. The cargo's offloaded, and regs say you don't
need more than two crew on board in-station. Theoretically no one can get past
the security at the lock."

 
          
 
Jay barked a laugh, and tossed long, dark hair
out of his eyes. "Honey, I'm a comptech. Trust me, you can get past the
security. You just hack into the system, tell it the ship in the bay is bigger
than it really is, and upload whoever you want as additional personnel."

 
          
 
Erica swore—but Jay stood up, wrapping the
sheet around himself like a toga, and pushed her gently aside. "What can
be hacked can be unhacked—or at least I can make it a lot more difficult for
them to get in and make those alterations stick. Give me your code to the AI.”

           
 
Erica hesitated. He turned to stare into her
eyes. "I need the AI's help. You two and the cats are going to get out of
here—get over to the Patrol side of the station. I'm going to hold them off as
long as I can, and play stupid when they do get in, but I need the speed of the
AI to help me lay traps. You've known me for three years. You trusted me enough
to bring me here, didn't you°"

 
          
 
She swore again, then reached past him to key
in her code. He sat down, ignoring them and plunging straight into a trance of
concentration.

 
          
 
"Come on!" Erica grabbed Dick's arm,
and put the support ball on the floor. SKitty and SCat must have been reading
her mind, for they both squirmed into the ball, which was big enough for more
than one cat. They'd upgraded the ball after SKitty had proved to be
so—fertile. Erica shoved the ball at Dick, and kept hold of his arm. pulling
him out into the corridor.

 
          
 
"Where are we going?" he asked.

 
          
 
"To get our suits, then to the emergency
lock," she replied crisply. "If we try to go out the main lock into
the station, they'll get us for certain. So we're going outside for a little
walk."

 
          
 
A little walk? All the way around the station?
Outside?

 
          
 
He could only hope that "they"
hadn't thought of that as well. They reached the suiting-up room in seconds
flat.

 
          
 
He averted his eyes and climbed into his own
suit as Erica shed her robe and squirmed into hers. "How far is it to the
Patrol Section?" he asked.

 
          
 
"Not as far as you think," she told
him. "And there's a maintenance lock just this side of it. What I want to
know is how you got all this detailed information about the hijacking."

 
          
 
He turned, and saw that she was suited up,
with her faceplate still open, staring at him with a calculating expression.

 
          
 
This is probably not the time to hold out on
her.

 
          
 
He swallowed, and sealed his suit up, leaving
his own faceplate open. Inside the ball, the cats were watching both of them,
heads swiveling to look from one face to the other, as if they were watching a
tennis match.

 
          
 
"SKitty's telepathic with me," he
admitted. "I think SCat's telepathic with her. She seems to be able to
talk with him, anyway."

 
          
 
He waited for Erica to react, either with
disbelief or with revulsion. Telepaths of any species were not always popular
among humankind. . . .

 
          
 
But Erica just pursed her lips and nodded.
"Eyeah. I thought she might be. And telepathy's one of the traits BioTech
doesn't talk about, but security people have known for a while that the MF type
cats are bred for it. Maybe SKitty's momma did a little wandering over on the
miltech side of the cattery, hmm?"

 
          
 
SKitty made a ''silent" meow, and he just
shrugged, relieved that Erica wasn't phobic about it. And equally relieved to
learn that telepathy was already a trait that BioTech had established in their
shipscat lines. So they won't be coming to take SKitty away from me when they
find out that she's a path. . . .

 
          
 
But right now, he'd better be worrying about
making a successful escape. He pulled his faceplate down and sealed it,
fastening the tether line of the ball to a snaplink on his waistband. He warmed
up his suit radio, and she did the -same. "I hope you know what you're
getting us into," he said, as Erica sealed her own plate shut and led the
way to the emergency lock.

 
          
 
She looked back over her shoulder at him.
"So do I" she replied soberly.

 
          
 
The trip was a nightmare.

 
          
 
Dick had never done a spacewalk on the
exterior of a station before. It wasn't at all like going out on the hull of a
ship. There were hundreds of obstacles to avoid— windows, antenna, instrument
packages, maintenance robots. Any time an inspection drone came along, they had
to hide to avoid being picked up on camera. It was work, hard work, to inch
their way along the station in this way, and Dick was sweating freely before
half an hour was up.

 
          
 
It seemed like longer. Every time he glanced
up at the chronometer in his faceplate HUD, he was shocked to see how little
time had passed. The suit fans whined in his ears, as the life-support system
alternately fought to warm him up when they hid in the shade, or cool him down
when they paused in full sunlight. Stars burned down on them, silent points of
light in a depth of darkness that made him dizzy whenever he glanced out at it.
The knowledge that he could be lost forever out there if he just made one small
mistake chilled his heart.

 
          
 
Finally, Erica pointed, and he saw the outline
of a maintenance lock just ahead. The two of them pulled themselves
hand-over-hand toward it, reaching it at the same instant. But it was Erica who
opened it, while Dick reeled the cats in on their tether.

 
          
 
With all four of them inside, Erica sealed the
lock from the inside and initiated pressurization. Within moments, they were
both able to pop their faceplates and breathe station air again.

 
          
 
Something prompted Dick to release the cats
from their ball before Erica unsealed the inner hatch. He un-snapped the tether
and was actually straightening up, empty ball in both hands, when Erica opened
the door to a hallway—

 
          
 
—and dropped to the floor, as the shrill
squeal of a stun-gun pierced the cjuiet of the lock.

 
          
 
"Erica!" Without thinking, he ran
forward, and found himself facing the business end of a powerful stunner, held
by a nondescript man who held it as if he were quite used to employing it. He
was not wearing a station uniform.

 
          
 
The man looked startled to see him, and Dick
did the only thing he could think of. He threw the support ball at the man, as
hard as he could.

 
          
 
It hit cleanly, knocking the man to the floor
as it impacted with his chest. He clearly was not aware that the support balls
were as massy as they were. The two cats flashed past him, heading for freedom,
and Dick tried to follow their example. But the man was quick to recover, and
as Dick tried to jump over his prone body, the fellow grabbed his ankle and
tripped him up.

 
          
 
Then it turned into a brawl, with Dick the
definite underdog. Even in the suit, the stranger still outweighed him.

 
          
 
Within a few seconds, Dick was on his back on
the floor, and the stranger held him down, easily. The stun gun was no longer
in his hands, but it didn't look to Dick as if he really needed it.

 
          
 
In fact, as the man's heavy fist pounded into
Dick's face, he was quickly convinced that he didn't need it. Pain lanced
through his jaw as the man's fist smashed into it; his vision filled with stars
and red and white flashes of light. More agony burst into his skull as the
blows continued. He flailed his arms and legs, but there was nothing he could
do—he was trapped in the suit, and he couldn't even get enough leverage to
defend himself. He tasted blood in his mouth—he couldn't see—

 
          
 
:BAD MAN!:

 
          
 
There was a terrible battle screech from
somewhere out in the corridor, and the blows stopped. Then the weight lifted
from his body, as the man howled in pain.

 
          
 
Dick managed to roll to one side and stagger
blindly to his feet with the aid of the corridor bulkhead—he still couldn't
see. He dashed blood out of his eyes with one hand, and shook his head to clear
it, staring blindly in the direction of the
ur
.

 
          
 
"Get it off! Get it off
me/""Human screams mixed with feline battle cries, telling him that
whichever of the cats had attacked, they were giving a good accounting of
themselves.

 
          
 
But there were other sounds—the sounds of
running feet approaching, and Dick tried frantically to get his vision to
clear. A heavy body crashed into him, knocking him into the bulkhead with
enough force to drive all the breath from his body, as the zing of an illegal
neuro gun went off somewhere near him.

 
          
 
SKitty!

 
          
 
But whoever was firing swore, and the cat wail
faded into the distance.

 
          
 
"It got away!'' said one voice, over the
sobbing of another.

 
          
 
A third swore, as Dick fought for air.
"You. Go after it," the third man said, and there was the sound of
running feet. Meanwhile, footsteps neared where Dick lay curled in a fetal
bundle on the floor.

 
          
 
"What about this?" the second voice
asked.

 
          
 
The third voice, cold and unemotional, wrote
Dick's death warrant. "Get rid of it, and the woman, too."

 
          
 
And Dick could not even move. He heard someone
breathing heavily just above him; sensed the man taking aim—