Orion Shall Rise (66 page)

Enough. He brought attention and fingers to the many-studded intricacy of the pilot board.
Click,
a bulb glowed green, a needle moved on a dial,
click,
a fan whirred and a breeze touched his cheeks,
click,
a computer display sprang onto a screen,
click –

Has this delay doomed you, Wairoa? I’m sorry, it’s not rational of me, I don’t wish it, but somehow that would atone for the killing – the double killing – and put an end to sorrow
.

Well, more likely than not we’re doomed too, my love and I. No
space suits aboard; those are individually made, and the flyers hadn’t been named before we did it ourselves. Untried ship; the robot craft was different in many ways. No ground control to help; no real crew; no emergency ejection system; no landing field for which I’ve practiced on the simulator, unless we want an executioner waiting for us to debark – Ronica, Ronica!
Iern beat his fist on the chair arm. Designed to cushion acceleration, it yielded maddeningly. After a short while, he swallowed hard and got back to work.

Having taken care of various duties aft, she slipped in and established herself. ‘Keep watch for intruders,’ he said.

‘I’m not a total butterbrain,’ she snapped.

Stricken, he stopped his preparations again to turn his head her way. ‘Forgive me,’ he blurted. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘Of course you didn’t, and I shouldn’t’ve reacted. I’m on edge too.’ She laughed. ‘Damn the safety factors! We can’t strain across the gap between us for a kiss, can we?’

‘I’m amazed at you. If I’m in turmoil, you must be in agony.’

‘Well, I was, sort of, until … I decided. But now we’re doing what’s right, or what’s least wrong, anyway. And laying our own lives on the line. And Iern, Iern, we’re going out! Into space!’

He couldn’t help it. She kindled something of that joy in him, regardless of everything. He
would not
dwell on the fact that his purpose was to keep Orion from truly rising, ever.

5

‘– avenge the wrongs we have suffered –’

The horn roared.

Mikli’s harangue broke For seconds he poised like a cat. A surge passed over the crowd, with a sound as of breaking waves and screaming gulls.

Mikli’s lips peeled back from his teeth. ‘Oh, oh,’ he muttered. ‘School’s out.’ He addressed the microphone again. His voice boomed into the clamor: ‘That’s the launch alarm. Take it easy. We’ve got trouble. Probably nothing we can’t handle, we Norrmen, if we keep our wits about us. Stay put,’ He lifted his arms and the half-panicky confusion died away. ‘All security personnel present, leave immediately and report to your regular duty stations. Equip yourselves and stand by for orders. The rest of you remain seated until your guardspeople are out. After that, make an orderly exit and go to your quarters.’

Dreng had mounted the stage. Terror writhed over the heavy countenance, not for his own safety. ‘Talk to ’em, Eygar,’ Miklisaid. ‘Keep ’em from stampeding. I’ll rescue your precious ship.’ Into the microphone: ‘Be of stout heart, Norrfolk. I’m on my way!’

He hurried off, along the aisle and through the door. Some cheered him. The sound was lost in the trumpet call.

When out of sight, he ceased his fast but confident walk and pelted down the hall, up a stair, down the hall above to his office. The subordinate manning it stood pistol in hand. She snapped the barrel aloft in salute. He waved merrily. ‘Any information?’ he asked as he passed by.

‘No, sir. Not yet.’ Boots pounded in the corridor, men shouted, echoes flew, the horn raged.

Mikli laughed. ‘That makes this all the more fun, eh?’ he said from the inner office.

At his desk, he snatched the telephone and began calling. ‘Level One, okay, guards haven’t noticed anything except the alarm,’ he announced while he punched for the second entry. ‘Level Two, same.… Level Three – hello, hello – a dead line, seems. And that’s the crew port.… Level Four, okay, no disturbance.… Level Five – Hello, hello, hello – it rings, but nobody answers –and
that
is Gate Control.’ He grinned. ‘Uh-huh. We’ve got us a case of the galloping piracies.’

The duty officer’s instrument shrilled. She listened for a few seconds. ‘Yes, I’ll switch you over,’ she said. Her tone trembled: ‘Sir, it’s a man from the Level Three post.’

Mikli listened. ‘A-a-a-ah,’ he breathed. ‘Very well, Hos, you and Levayn report to your command center, draw new weapons, and wait for orders with the rest of your team. No time now to worry about whether you were negligent. Move!’ He put the phone down. ‘Shaira, dear,’ he called to the outer office, ‘check the whereabouts of Wairoa Haakonu.’

‘Why, he should be confined, sir, shouldn’t he? But –’ A throttled shriek. ‘He isn’t! He’s at Gate Control!’

Mikli nodded. ‘Figures.’ He consulted his watch. ‘Ferlay and the Birken slut must be snugging themselves into the ship at this moment,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘Normal countdown would be an hour. They can easily shave off most of that – or all of it, if we try to force an entry and they sec nothing to lose by blasting off at once. But they’ll prefer going through at least the basic checkouts and
warmups. Twenty minutes, perhaps.’ He raised his voice anew. ‘Shaira, call security HQ and have a squad equipped with a couple of rocket guns proceed to Level Five, pronto. If the door is shut, which it doubtless
is,
they’re to blow it down, and get in and shunt that valve back in place before the ship rises. On the double!’

Once more he lifted his phone, and punched a special number. ‘Battleship
Sea Serpent,
Commander Scarp on the bridge, speaking,’ he heard.

‘Captain Karst,’ Mikli snapped. ‘Listen well. Code Volcano. D’you read me?’

‘Yes, sir. Absolute priority.’

‘Get up steam and man battle stations. Warn personnel not to look west. It’s possible there’ll be several flashes in that direction which could blind them – yes, they’d better not be exposed without full clothing, gloves, and face masks.’

‘What?’ The appalled man mastered himself. ‘Have civilians been alerted?’

‘Yes, ever since this pig got out of its poke, the alarm has included a radio ‘cast, and a receiver is always open in Kenai. They’ll be in bed with the blankets pulled over them. I thought everybody knew that.’ Mikli said impatiently. ‘If our spacecraft does go up, you put out to sea. Your primary mission will be to destroy the Maurai aircraft carriers, so they can’t lay precision bombing on us after they’ve taken a sight. You will do that at all costs. If thereafter you can inflict further damage, why, that’s fine; but try to disengage and return here while you still have some missiles in reserve against whatever they may try next. Do you understand? Repeat.’

When the navy man had obeyed, his own words shaken, Mikli said, ‘Have fun,’ lowered the phone, and left his chair. For a moment his vision lingered on the mammoth tusks. ‘I hope you did in your day, old chap,’ he murmured, ‘and that I can leave as impressive a memento behind me.’ He stroked the smooth onyx of his penholder, turned, and walked out.

‘Where are you going, sir?’ his subordinate inquired.

Mikli chuckled amidst the trumpeting. ‘Why, to Level Five. You didn’t imagine I’d miss such an entertainment, did you, love?’ He patted her head, laughed at her annoyance, and hastened off.

An officer stopped him, wanting permission to lead a breakthrough at Level Three. Mikli lost several minutes; the request must be refused so emphatically that the attempt would not be made
regardless. Finally an elevator bore him to the corridor just below his objective.

There the racket of the horn was loud enough to shiver his jaws. A dozen armed men stood at the ladder. One bore a launch tube across his shoulders, two more each carried four of the small solid-fuel rockets with explosive warheads which the device projected, the rest were conventionally outfitted. The entire squad was in disarray; men looked grim or slouched in despair; they reeked of fear; the pain that showed upon them was not only in their eardrums.

Mikli dashed to meet them. ‘What in hell’s shitpits is the matter with you?’ he yelled. ‘And I ordered two rocketeers.’

The squad leader saluted. ‘Sir,’ he answered against the noise, ‘the second man is dead, along with four others. There’s a rifleman defending, and he’s murderous. Whoever raises his head out of the shaft gets a slug straight through it. No time to deploy the weapon.’ He gulped. ‘And, uh, sir, you know this’s a suicide task, don’t you? The armor on that door ’ull throw chunks back – cut the rocketeer to pieces.’

Mikli glared from face to face. ‘A man should be proud to die that Orion may rise,’ he stated.

‘Orion Two
will rise any minute,’ whimpered another. ‘Without the door, whoever’s up there won’t live to tell about it. Even down here –’

Mikli put arms akimbo. For a few seconds, only the trumpet had voice. ‘And you call yourselves Norrmen,’ he said.

Suddenly: ‘Okay. Load that tube and
give
it to me.’

‘Sir?’ They goggled at him.

‘I’ll open the door for you. Be prepared to follow. You –’ he pointed to the most woebegone of the group – ‘I’ll have your side-arm. You run on home to your mother and see if she can’t supply the cojones she overlooked when you were on the assembly line.’

The man flinched. ‘Sir, this is crazy,’ the leader protested. ‘We can’t afford to lose you! I’ll try it again myself.’

Mikli shook his head. ‘No. I’ve got a notion, but I won’t waste time explaining, and you haven’t the craziness to execute it properly anyway.’ His laughter shrilled. ‘Also, I’m not about to miss a chance like this for making havoc!’

They shuffled their feet and looked away. ‘Jump,’ he ordered, as quietly as possible under the racket. They regarded him and made haste to obey.

Pistol at waist, loaded launch tube on his back, Mikli put foot to rung. ‘When you hear this thing go off, follow,’ he directed. Monkey-agile, he swarmed aloft.

A haze of horn-sound filled the zigzag passage. At its end the dead men lay sprawled in a heap. Their eyes stared, their mouths gaped, blood and brains and excrement besmeared them. Mikli made a slight moue and picked his way over them to the next ladder.

When his brow was almost at the verge, he stopped. Clinging one-handed, he unbuckled his dress belt and passed it around the rung at his midriff, refastening it to make a loop against which he could freely lean. He unshipped the rocket launcher and raised it, with some effort, until its front half rested on the floor above. His left hand took hold of the stock, which should have been at his shoulder, and tilted the barrel upward.

Bullets whanged. Wairoa had seen. The tube jerked to the impacts. Mikli grinned wider than before. His right hand reached for the firing switch.

It was a madman’s plan, therefore it had not occurred to the guards. He could aim only by blind estimate, and the barrel wouldn’t hold steady. The odds were immense that the rocket would not strike near the vulnerable point where the bolt met its housing, but merely dent the steel somewhere
else
. Mikli relied on his luck. Speaking to the gathered Wolves, he had called it destiny.

The alarm cut off. Silence crashed down.

For a short while, he could not know that it had, as stunned as his ears were. Then he heard the signal that came after, high and icy, a sound like a winter wind.

In three minutes,
Orion Two
would rise.

Mikli fired. Smoke and flame whirled above him. Fumes scorched his breathing. The
whoom
of the missile ended in a doomsday crash. Knife-edged shards of it flew glittering and wailing, caromed from the walls, hailed past him where he pressed himself tight to his side of the shaft. He scarcely felt the lacerations. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but stopping the ship.

He sprang upward. No bullet greeted him. Soot-stained and battered, the door sagged ajar. ‘Ya-a–ah!’ he screamed in his victory, and plunged toward it.

Wairoa stood fast while the trumpet cried its summons. Eye to loophole, weapons ready, he waited. When the guardsmen appeared, he
picked them off. He paid no heed to the one who lay bound on the floor. Afterward, though, his gaze strayed to the dead woman. He stooped, briefly laid a hand on her belly, straightened, and resumed his vigil, a gaunt night figure amidst whiteness and machinery.

The rocket launcher poked over the verge. He fired several times, but that was no fleshly target.

The horn ceased blowing. Orion whistled.

Wairoa eased. His watch was ended.

Almost.

The blast sent him staggering backward. He dropped his rifle. Dazed, he went to his knees. Blood dripped from his nose. He crawled back erect. Mikli Karst had slipped through the crack that had opened. His pistol was drawn.

Orion whistled.

Mikli shot. Wairoa stumbled, caught at a wall, leaned panting against it. From the hole in his guts, crimson spurted and flooded. Mikli made for the control board.

Wairoa gathered himself and scuttled to intercept. ‘No!’ Mikli howled. ‘You can’t!’ He shot again, nearly point-blank. Wairoa did not seem to feel. He reached his enemy and grappled.

Embraced, they reeled by the panel, on outward. Mikli could not bring his gun to bear, against the grip on that arm. Wairoa twisted, bones snapped, the pistol clattered to the floor. Mikli’s free hand gouged. Wairoa ignored. He was using his own right arm to steer his opponent, keep them both moving.

‘No!’ Mikli shrieked. ‘No!’

Wairoa smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said.

They lurched onto the balcony. Mikli sank teeth into Wairoa’s throat. Wairoa levered him over the guard rail. Mikli did not let go. They fell together, a hundred and more meters down the shaft toward the pit.

– Below, the squad leader exhorted his men. A few who were brave rallied to him. They climbed the ladders and burst into the control section. That was just in time for them to perish in the fire and thunder of the ascent.

This time the angry magnates had not met in Kemper under false pretenses. They made known their purpose, and gathered in Dordoyn, at Castle Beynac, whose warders gave Captain Jovain his first open defiance. There were many more of them than had been at the previous conference. Their entourages filled every spare room in the keep, every possible place nearby, and not even the innkeepers would take money for lodging.