Rogue Powers (20 page)

Through this corridor to the elevator banks—good! There was a car waiting. She rushed from a shadowy comer into the car and punched the button for the zero-gee section. The door shut and up she went.

The elevator travelled up to the zero-gee section and the doors opened. The lights were dimmed here, too, and Lucy felt a cool, metallic tang in the air, as if she could sense the vacuum held back by the airlocks. A silly idea. Her head seemed to be full of them tonight. She had just about three minutes to get herself inside Bay Three before Cyn's bogus explosion warning would scare everyone out. No time to hide and skulk in comers at the sound of a voice now. She had on the right sort of uniform. She'd just have to trust to the gloomy lighting and hope that she didn't run into a Guard who would recognize her face.

Lucy rushed along the corridors, swarming along the handholds at top speed. She hadn't been in zero-gee for months, but it all came back to her now. Like riding a bicycle, or so went the expression. Lucy hadn't ever learned to ride a bike.

Bay One. Bay Two. Bay Three. Here. In here.

Lucy stopped herself and hung in mid-air at the personnel hatch to the bay. Bay Three. This was where the CIs—no, they had still thought of themselves as Survey Service back then—this was where the Survey Service group had been put aboard
Ariadne
when they were taken off
Venera.

Well, if this was where she got on, it was also where she got off And no way to sneak in. There was a small viewport set in the hatch, and Lucy cautiously peeked into it.

The interior of the bay was in darkness. One small light shone in the corner—the two sentries playing gin rummy being very careful of the cards in zero-gee. Good. Their eyes would be adjusted for light, not dark. Lucy took as good a look as she could at the dim interior. When the
Venera
survivors had been piled in here, the vast storage and transfer space had been completely empty, stripped bare. Now there was cargo stored everywhere, in crates and cases and pressure vessels lashed down and stacked and secured on every inch of deck space. It was a maze of hiding places.

The hatch was closed but not dogged shut. Slowly, with exquisite care, she opened the hatch. It creaked just a little as it swung outward, a bare little chirp of a noise. She swung the hatch open just for enough to let her slip through it. Hugging close to the deck, she pulled it shut behind her. Floating noiselessly through zero-gee, she pulled herself along the deck and hid behind a convenient stack of cases.

Now it was time for Cynthia to come through.

At that moment, Cynthia was in a cold sweat—doing her best to have a pleasant chat with Private Wendell, who had suddenly tired of his comic. He was a nice enough kid who probably had a crush on her. She blanked her terminal's screen the moment he had come over to talk about the movie that had been shown the night before, a rather pedestrian Guardian comedy that had proven humor was incompatible with censorship. Wendell had loved it, which probably proved that taste was likewise incompatible.

She tried to shut him up politely, get him back to his reading "—Listen," she interrupted gently, "I've
got
to watch my screens, or else get shot when some pair of ships crack up out there."

"Huh? I thought things were pretty quiet tonight."

"They are, but I want to keep it that way. And with one thing and another I've barely had a chance to monitor. I've really got to pay strict attention for a while, until I know what's going on out there. I need to get caught up."

"Okay. Could I maybe get you a cuppa coffee? It'd gimme something t'do.'

Please, please do, you silly kid. Anything to leave me alone,
Cynthia thought. But she couldn't seem eager. "Isn't that against regs? You're supposed to be keeping an eye on me.'

"Hell, you've been here close to a year and you've never tried anything. I'll just go to the galley and back. Stretch my legs. Be back in five minutes.'

"Well!—how about tea instead?"

Wendell displayed a grin hill of buck teeth. "Sure. I'll go get it."

Cynthia called up Gremloid before he was out the door. What the hell was Lucy doing back on station? Where had she come from? And what the devil did she need to steal a ship for? No time for that. Cynthia hurriedly instructed Gremloid to slip the bogus emergency to the main computer through the ship's environmental monitor circuits.

Lucy was probably in or near Bay Three by now—the sick bay was close to the elevator banks, and Luce was fast in zero-gee. But Cynthia didn't dare stage a phony alert in the time Wendell was gone. Too suspicious. She told Gremloid to run the fake in ten minutes. That would give Wendell plenty of time to spill the tea, mop it up, make it again, and bring it to her.

Lucy knew how slowly time moved for her when she was waiting, but this was ridiculous. Though it was too

damn dark to check her wrist-aid for the time, she was sure more than ten minutes had passed. There was nothing she could do but wait in the dark, and mentally rehearse the moves that would get her to Lock Six. As best she could remember, Six should be on the opposite side of the deck.

"Here's the tea," Wendell announced in a loud, clear voice as he came in. Cynthia nearly jumped half out of her skin.

"Oh—you startled me," Cynthia said, trying to regain her composure. She took her tea and smiled at him. "Thanks.

"No problem. So how's it look out there?"

"Very quiet. No one changing orbit, so far as I can see."

"Good. So I guess we can talk a bit, then, now that you're caught up."

That was exactly the last thing Cynthia was in the mood for, but it would cover for her when all hell broke loose in a minute or two. "I guess so," she said, smiling. She was just beginning to strain her imagination, trying to think of a topic she could possibly discuss with him, then a shrill
beep, beep
came on at the radar room's security console.

"Oh, hell," Wendell said as he crossed to see what the alarm was.

"What is it?" Cynthia asked. Either they had caught Lucy or Gremloid had just tossed his diversion into the main system.

"Hold on a sec—I'm not that good with this thing. All—oh, no big deal, not our section. Fuel leak in the zero-gee section. Happens all the time. They'll get it fixed.”

"Oh."

"So, anyway," Wendell said cheerfully. "Know what I really liked about last night's show?"

"Tell me."

The alert might not have bothered Wendell, but the two sentries in Bay Three got pretty excited. It was more than a
beep, beep
to them. A huge voice shouted down at them, "Evacuate and seal off this compartment. Explosive fuel leak detected. All personnel evacuate this compartment." A siren started, and the booming warning voice repeated again and again. The two of them were out the personnel hatch in nothing flat.

Lucy watched the two of them get out and dog the hatch behind them. Then she pulled herself up from behind her packing cases and kicked off toward Lock Six. Everything going well so far—

There was a clank and a thud as the personnel hatch was pulled back open. Lucy grabbed at a handhold and pulled herself down, taking cover behind a pressure vessel. The main lighting came on, dazzling her eyes.

"We saw you, whoever you are. You should have remembered that hatch has a viewport. Come on out."

"Sergeant Mosgrove, that could be a real leak warning. It's still repeating. Let's get out of here."

"Shut up, Sammy. Whoever is in here jiggered that alarm to get us to leave our posts. You want to steal a ship? Go ahead and try, you lousy CI bastard. I knew you creeps couldn't be trusted."

"How do you know it's a CI?"

"Who else would be after a ship?" Mosgrove growled. "Come on out, 'cause we're coming in."

Lucy's heart was pounding fit to break through her ribs, and she found her gun in her hand. She pulled herself along the ropes and cables that held down the cargo, peering around the packing cases, trying to get a sight line. The booming voice repeated its warning. Soon other sentries would come, to check on their comrades. She didn't have time to fight these guys. If she could get to Lock Six . . . It should be a small lock, its hatch set flush with the deck. There. Ten meters away, across open deck—

She spotted one of the Guards and fired before she could think. A young kid, maybe nineteen, and he screamed as her laser chopped his hand off.

Mosgrove, a sour-faced man of indeterminate age, came
up behind the younger man, and Lucy felt a terrible pain in her left hand and caught a whiff of cooking meat. Mosgrove had fired and hit her. She fired her own weapon right in his
face,
and her enemy became a corpse before he could lift a hand to shield himself.

Lucy forced herself to take their guns. She might need weapons where she was going.

Ninety seconds later she was cycled through Lock Six and strapped into the pilot's chair in a Hero-Class lander.

She thought of two men, one dead and one maimed, and she didn't feel very hero-class herself. Then she started flicking switches and trying to remember what she could about now the Guards flew these things.

The radar room was wired into Launch and Recovery Control, of course. Cynthia's own radars were watching a lot further out than the skin of
Ariadne.
L&R would call her, ask to confirm an unauthorized launch the moment it happened. Cynthia chatted aimlessly with the endlessly dull Wendell, waiting for the call. The comm light lit up. "Excuse me a second, Wendell." She hit the answer key. "Radar room here." She had to keep her voice calm.

"Cyn, this is Schiller over in L&R. We've got a sensor light here showing an open docking collar where a lander's supposed to be. Is that a bum sensor or did a ship really drift loose over there?"

"Hmm. Stand by. I'll have to reconfigure for a close scan. But we got a reading of a fuel leak over there."

"Yeah, we got that too. Sounds like a right nasty malfunction."

"Could be the lander's pilot cast loose to get clear of a possible explosion."

"Yeah, we thought of that. Got it yet?"

"Hang in there Sam. The controls seem a little sluggish for some reason."

Sam Schiller wasn't especially concerned up until that moment. Little malfs like this were what he was here for.

But then something strange happened. As he listened over his headset, Cynthia started whistling, badly.

Cyn
never
whistled. It wasn't in her character. Neither was the tune, a breezy little bit of froth. Cyn was big on the classics, and on the Atonalists. But that tune sounded familiar. A very old pop song that had been dredged up out of someone's memory for some reason. What was it? Schiller remembered some of the CIs singing it to tease—

Whoa. That was it.
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.
They had used to kid Calder with it, back on the
Venera
.

And Wu was no ladder. Schiller had been, once, but living in the enemy's lap had drained that from him and left a residue of paranoia imagination. "Ah, Cynthia. I've got a lot of what sounds like room noise on the line. Please switch to your headset, and I'll do the same."

"Stand by." There was a click. "On headsets now."

Schiller plugged the tiny speaker into his ear. "Okay, if I keep my voice down we're private at this end. You trying to tell me something?"

"Affirmative."

Great. Some Guard was breathing down her neck. At least the L&R sentry was across the room. "Understood. Something's up, but you can't tell me because of our babysitter. He can hear what you say, but not what I say."

"Affirmative," Cynthia's voice said, a strange, false light-heartedness in her tone.

"So who the hell is on that lander?"

"You'll have to trust the readings I just gave a bit longer, Sam. Let's just take our time and do it right, so we don't lose one."

"Okay, Calder's on that thing, somehow, and you want me to stall. What the hell is going on?"

"No info yet, Sam. Stand by." There was a long pause. "I have some sort of very close-in radar contact. We might need to put in a call to Search and Rescue."

Sam Schiller wasn't very good at this sort of thing. He was glad Cynthia could think fast. Search and Rescue was one banged-up old cargo ship and whichever two Guard
pilots who wanted a chance to catch up on their sleep. The longer it took to rouse them, the longer it would be until someone figured out there was an escape in progress and called Fighter Command. And the way Cynthia was running things, there wouldn't be anything on the record to show the CIs had aided the escape or impeded the Guards. Unless they were tapping the intercom, in which case Schiller knew he was going to be shot. Schiller reached for the S&R phone and swore to himself. He didn't
want
to be good at this sort of thing.