Rift (68 page)

The expression on Bonhert’s face as he strode forward was one of genuine pleasure mixed with confusion. Mitya knew the Captain didn’t like ambiguity. So he went for clarity.

Mitya screamed. He screamed as loud as he knew how, a wild, long animal wail that he didn’t know he was capable of. He took off running as he screamed, stopping everyone dead in their tracks. He bounded up the blackened humps of lava that had domed around the vent until he judged he was far enough way from
Gabriel Bonhert to avoid his questions and the pistol in his belt webbing. It was hot up there, with his back to the river of magma flowing just a few feet away in its open pipe.

He stood on the heap of coiled and cooled lava and looked at the amazed crew, who had paused in their work, staring at him. Reaching into his pocket, Mitya brought out the little black signal pad he’d programmed, and punched in A
UDIO
, loud.

From two sides, where he’d hidden the amplifiers, came Bonhert’s voice:

“I tell you, this is hell, Kitcher.”

Pause, static. “… 
know that, know that, but we have our extreme circumstances as well …”

“Damn your extreme circumstances! Ten isn’t enough—we have forty-two. How am I going to explain this?”

Mitya’s stomach felt like molten rock. The recording was hard to hear. And now Bonhert was shouting at Mitya, bounding toward him.

The recording went on:
“That’s your own problem, Captain. Many of us didn’t want to divert your way in the first place. I’m under constraints as bad as yours, never doubt it.”

Static. Bonhert swore.
“Then if you’re set on your number …”

“I’m sorry …”

“I say, if you’re set on your number, then ten it is. Ten slots on your grand ship for eighty pounds of ore. I’ll pull this off, Kitcher, but I don’t know how.”

Bonhert had reached Mitya’s side. His look was purely murderous. “Turn it
off
. Now.”

Kitcher’s voice was booming out:
“If you’re worried, we can cancel this here and now.…”

“I’m not worried. I’ll handle my people.”

“See that you do. They still have their chance on the surface. Maybe they’ll fare better than we. Only the Lord knows.”

“The Lord has no hand in this devil’s bargain, Kitcher.”

Mitya brought the signal pad out of his pocket. As Bonhert reached for it, Mitya tossed it into the flow of magma.

“Ten. It’s my final offer,”
the recording droned on.

“Yes, all right; done then.”

“I presume you’ll be one of the ten?”

Pause.
“Who’s coming onboard is no concern of yours. I’ll choose. That’s all you have to know.”
Static.
“And Kitcher: We won’t speak of this again.”

“Understood.”

It was the end of the recording. Bonhert looked as though he would blow Mitya’s brains out. But instead the Captain turned to his people and held up his hands. He was preparing to speak, to spin this story, somehow. Mitya eased away from the man.

And then the recording began again:
“I tell you, this is hell, Kitcher.”

Bonhert slowly turned to Mitya, raised his pistol. The expression on his face had solidified into a profound sneer. The real face of the real Captain, at last.

There was nowhere to run. The recording went on.
“… I’ll pull this off, Kitcher, but I don’t know how …”

And then Oran, in a rage, was scrambling up to where Bonhert stood. Bonhert swung and shot him between the eyes.

Now every gun was trained on Bonhert. From somewhere, a lone shot. Bonhert took a wound in his leg. Then another in his pelvis, a hit that sent him sprawling backward. Another shot ricocheted off the rock. Bonhert was slumped along the line of the vent, unmoving. With a muffled
thunk
, the surface of the ground broke in two under his left shoulder, and his arm flopped into a red stream. Fire ripped over his jacket.

Then Tenzin Tsamchoe was pulling him away from
the vent, slapping out the flames with his own jacket. Bonhert lay inert. Then a moan came from the man’s throat. He couldn’t be alive—but he was, the exposed arm still smoking from the flame.

Now Val Cody was by his side. She drew her pistol and shot Bonhert in the side of the head.

The audio went on:
“I presume you’ll be one of the ten?”

“Turn it off, Mitya,” Val Cody said. “You’ve made your point.”

“Have I?” he shouted above the recording. “Were
you
one of the ten, Lieutenant?”

Tsamchoe said, “Gudrun, secure that cannon. No one goes near it.”

Gudrun, who by chance was positioned on the other side of the vent, moved to cover the truck and its geo cannon cargo.

But Marie Dussault was there already, and warned Gudrun off with her gun. As Gudrun froze in place, Marie shouted, “How many of you want to help me?” She swept her gaze over the crowd. “I need nine friends.” She moved closer to the truck and the controls. There at the second cableway tower, she was separated from most of the crew by the long line of the vent.

It was then that Mitya saw the ghosts emerging from thin air on every side of the camp.

5

Reeve heard a shot in the distance. Then two more, and another. He was surrounded by an absolute whiteout, but he ran toward the shots and the booming voices. Now he would have to kill crew, friends, kin. A spike of nausea ripped through him.

From the mists, a shape materialized: arms, legs, real face—a crew member. The long automatic swung up to point at Reeve, but Reeve was already shooting,
shooting. The man was down, chest smoking. Orthong everywhere, some firing from their cuffs, others shooting from their long guns. People screaming. No doubts about whose side those screams came from.…

Amidst this, amplified voices punctuated the mayhem:
“… the Lord has no hand … my final offer … one of the ten … we won’t speak …”

In the background, through tatters of fog, Reeve saw a tall construct, wires suspended to another column, bridging the vent. There. The geo cannon. He ran toward it, swinging his gun once to fire at Bertram Hess, who stood in his way.

Lord of Worlds, he had killed Hess. The screams of the wounded surged through him; he felt their passage through his gut. He had done this, brought death to the last of the Station. What had he become but a murderer like Bonhert, finishing the job Bonhert had started? Betrayed them all … and why?

The cannon, that was why. He ran for it.

He found her slumped by the far tower. Blood stained her shirt, but she crouched with gun drawn, as though she’d been waiting for him.

“Marie.”

She licked her lips, panting, “Help me.”

“I’ll help you. Move away from the tower.”

A grin brightened her face, showing the old Marie for a moment. “Too much to hope for. That you’d help me fire this damn thing.”

He looked up to find that the truck was in position above the vent, the curtain of steam issuing past the suspended truck, obscuring the cannon that surely crouched there.

“Oh, Marie …” His voice came out like a moan. Her hand was on the control pad.

“No point firing the damn thing if you’re just going to kill me afterward.” She grinned. It was pain, he realized. One arm hung uselessly at her side.

He nodded. “Yes. There’s no point. Because I
will
kill you if you do.”

“Unless your soft heart would prevent you.” She cocked her head. Was she taunting him?

“No, you’ll die, Marie. I’ll kill you, I swear I will.”

“You got it stuck in your craw, don’t you, that this place is worth saving?” She shook her head. “Lord above, for a fool.” She winced, hand trembling on the panel. “Come with me, Reeve. The shuttle is just behind us. It’s got enough canisters on board to buy our passage. Come with me.”

“You killed my father.”

She sighed, long and noisily. “Yes, I suppose I did.” She shook her head slowly, as though the world were an infinitely weary thing. “Just remember one thing, Reeve: Once I fire the cannon”—she threw the switch—“killing me will only be a useless act of revenge.”

The cannon fired.

It was the only noise in the world. Reeve was thrown to his knees … oh Lord, too late, too late … and then he was scrambling back up, and was rushing at her, sickened that he had hesitated. She reached up to fire the second mole, and he shot her, square in the chest.

Shaking violently, he swiveled to face any others who would approach the control panel. He pivoted to one side, then the other. But everything was still. The battle was over, the shouting had stopped, the blaring recording was silenced. Only the ground beneath his feet rumbled with a very slight tremor.

Then a blast from an orthong cuff fried the cable and the truck sagged closer to the vent, hanging, useless. Finally it dropped into the magma chamber, its remaining two moles deactivated, dissolving in the great rock furnace.

But one had fired.

He sat, stupefied, staring at the vent. His eyes registered the heat of the neon-red river.

6

Mitya found Reeve by Marie Dussault’s body. He was staring straight ahead. The cableway system had been blasted apart, but too late. They had all heard the firing of the cannon. It would be five or six hours before they would know if the mole probed deeply enough to do the job. If it would tear apart the valley or the whole world. Or if it would fizzle and die in the long throat of the planet.

“Reeve,” Mitya said. “They’re killing everyone. Stop them.”

Reeve staggered to his feet. “No, they can’t.…”

“They’re ripping people apart.…”

Mitya hurried after Reeve as they scrambled along the old lava flows and came to a halt atop a rock pile overlooking the camp. Orthong were bending over the human wounded, killing them with extruded claws. Reeve bellowed and began running down into camp. He was unarmed, but ran straight for an orthong about to slice a man’s chest open. “Nooo!” he roared.

The orthong straightened and raised its arm to strike Reeve.

A woman Mitya had never seen before stepped forward, making some gestures, and the orthong stopped.