The City Who Fought (48 page)

She stared at the mutilated corpse. "Serig," she said. "His name was Serig."

"A dead dog's name dies on the dungheap," Joseph said in a snarl. Then he turned to her and his eyes were alive once more. He bowed, checked himself with a sharp gasp, then completed the gesture. "My lady, are you hurt?" he inquired solicitously.

His face, for once, was naked. Rachel gasped and swayed, looking down at the body and then at the man she had despised.

"Joseph!" she cried, clutching at his arm. "I . . ." Reality whirled, splintered, as if a glass surface between her and her thoughts had shattered. "Joseph," she said more softly, wonderingly. "Something has happened to me. I . . . I remember things that cannot be. I—" she blushed "—I remember being so cruel to you, so vicious. And, and I—" she looked up at him, shaking her head in denial even as she whispered in growing horror "—betrayed Amos to the Kolnari?"

He touched her cheek, a feather soft caress. "Lady, you have been ill. You were poisoned by the coldsleep drugs that we took. It is not your fault."

"Oh," she said, "oh," and threw herself into his arms, weeping. "Please forgive me," she pleaded, "I am unworthy, I am foul, but I beg you, Joseph, do not despise me. Do not leave me."

"I could never despise my lady," he said simply. He extended a hand which she grasped, though the fingers were slippery with death.

"Come, we have little time," he said. "We must get you to a place of safety, and I have much work to do this day."

"Then let us hasten, Joseph," she replied.

* * *

Joat and Patsy dropped down, halting at the sight of the body. They scanned the hall tensely, then edged nearer. Joat looked at it out of the corner of her eyes, but the older woman stared hungrily.

The arc pistol rose, then fell helplessly.

"It's him," she whispered. "It's him. And it's been done!" Her tone was aggrieved, indignant.

Joat moved up beside her.
Boy, is he
ever
done,
she thought with her newfound squeamishness, and tried to ignore the smell.
This skudgesucker worked up an awful lot of mad against himself.
It was not that she regretted his death, just . . .

"Sorry it wasn't you?" she said, looking up at her companion.

For the first time since her rape, Patsy Sue Coburn was weeping.

"No," she said, her voice thick. "No, I'm not sorry. Not sorry he's dead, not sorry it wasn't me. Jist glad this dawg will never hurt nobody agin. I . . . won't have to remember doing it, now."

"Yeah, that's right," Joat said desolately, slamming the doors of memory firmly shut. "C'mon, we got work to do."

They turned to Joseph and Rachel. "Let's boost her up," Joat continued. "Axial up one ought to be safe enough to stash her. Then we can get on with it."

* * *

"Simeon?" Channa said softly. "You back?"

"Part of me." His voice sounded dim, although the implant's volume was always the same. "I'm dancing on a sawblade, keeping their communications down and fighting off their ships' computers. Can't keep them out of touch forever." More sharply. "You all right?"

"You want to know?" she said, dressing with calm haste.

"Yeah."

"It was annoying as hell . . . and sort of strenuous." A moment's urchin grin. "And to tell the truth, I'd have been forever curious if I hadn't. What I'd
like
," she said as she finished sealing her overall to the neck, "is to see his face when he realizes I'm not coming back through that door."

"I'll record it."

"And don't tell Amos."

A section of the ceiling paneling turned translucent and slid back. Joat's face showed through and then her body somersaulted down.

"There's a crawlspace we c'n get into now that leads to a bunch of air-ducts and electric-conduits.

Come
on.
"

Channa examined the hatch in the ceiling and smiled wryly. "Just like in a holovid," she murmured.

Joat grinned. "Yeah, only a
lot
smaller." She looked anxiously at Channa's lean length. "You may find it a squeeze. Had to leave the others back a ways. Do you nurdly when you're cramped?"

"Is there a choice?" Channa said.

"Then you don't. Push yourself along with your hands and toes. Don't try to use your knees or you'll eventually black out from the pain."

"Do you speak as one who knows?"

"Uh-huh, I've seen it happen. Give me a boost?"

Channa braced, cupped her hands, lifted Joat towards the ceiling hatch.

"Ready." Joat's voice came down, sounding a little hollow.

"Stand back." Channa crouched down and sprang upwards, catching the sides of the hole and pulling herself straight up, arms trembling with the strain.

The crawlspace was narrow and cramped and confining. She had to breathe and move in different motions. It was wonderful.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Okay," Florian Gusky croaked. "Go." He coughed, his lungs and throat a mass of pain and fire. The air system had not been designed to be occupied for two-week stays. "Go, you bastards."

Eight tugs and the mining scout
In Your Dreams
brought up their systems. There had been ten tugs, but Lowbau and Wong hadn't been answering on tightbeam for four days. If something had gone wrong with their life-support, neither of them had made a sound while it happened, accepting death in the silence of their powered-down ships, alone in the dark.

"Comin' home," Gus whispered.

The tugs had drifted with the other debris that cluttered the vicinity of the station. He gave silent thanks for the fact that Simeon had never been a neat housekeeper. More that Channa hadn't had time to reform him before the trouble struck. Now the energies of their drives painted half of heaven. Acceleration pushed him back into the padding, beyond what the compensators could handle. The screen ahead of him was a holo-driven schematic, with his target and approach vector marked off as a box, and the tug a blip that had to be kept inside it. Easy work for a military craft, but these tugs were designed for hard slow pulls, not whipping around. Nothing else mattered but the vector, and the load of scrap and ore trailing behind him. Through his body the drives hummed, pushed past all prudence and all hope.

His mind found time to note the bright spark that was a tug going up, a pulse from the engine detonation and then the brighter flash of the destabilized powerplant.

"Well, that ought to let 'em know we're here," he muttered. Whiskers rasped against the feeding nozzle and the mike as his head moved in the helmet. He knew his face must look neither sane nor pleasant. The tug surged as he corrected. The station filled a sidescreen, and the bristling saucer shape of the Kolnari battle platform docked to its north polar tube, like some monstrous tick swelling with blood.

"You're
mine
," Gus shouted past cracked lips. "
All mine!
"

* * *

Simeon stood in the passageway. Rock rumbled around him, the bomb exploded away from a spot above, chips stinging his eyes and going
spang
off his armor. The long head that battered through was scaled in sapphire and had eyes set all about it, in a bone rill that turned to spikes. The muzzle split four ways, and each segment was lined with fangs. The tongue between was a metal-tipped spear ready to strike.

He struck first, grabbing it in an armored gauntlet and hauling back before the quadruple jaws could slam shut. When they did, it was on their own tongue. A high whine of pain drove needles into Simeon's ears.

He kept his grip on the lashing end, whipped it three times around the muzzle and tied a quick slip-knot.

Then he stood back and took a double-handed grip on his glowing baseball bat.
Tkwak.
The guardian program shivered, slumped, dissolved into metallic fragments that scurried back and forth disorganized, then decayed instantly into floating bytes.

"Next," he said, walking forward toward the iron-strapped door, which was
probably
the entrance to the CPU. "Geeze, I've got to patent this AI interface," he said, taking stance again. "It's—"

Boom.
Oak splintered, wrought iron bent and shrieked.

"—fardlin'—"

Boom.

"—fun."

* * *

"Lord,
lord!
"

The commander of the High Clan battle platform
Skull Crusher
pivoted on one heel. The big circular room was half-empty; the liberty parties were only now returning.

"What?" he barked at the info-systems watch-officer.
Not now.
He was scheduled to undock and begin transit first, to be there when the transports came in for rendezvous with the rest of the High Clan. Just in case, but the weight of the responsibility was heavy, and this was his first independent command.

"Lord, our system is under attack!"

"The worm program?" Chindik t'Marid was a specialist in those. He had designed the standard Clan attack worm himself. He was also a game designer of note, although that was merely a hobby.

"No," the tech said. His fingers were dancing over his board. "Something's just
smashing
its way in."

"Aside." Chindik called up a graphic. He whistled silently. Something with
enormous
computational power was battering at the defenses with tremendous force, trying
all
the solutions. There was no indication of realspace location. His computers were spending all their capacity just keeping the enemy out. But since there was only one enemy installation in sight—

"Cut the cable feeds to the station," he said. "Battle alert to all other vessels."

"I
can't
cut the feeds," the tech said. "The retractors won't answer. Neither do the landline comms to the rest of the flotilla."

"Well, then—" Chindik began. Another cry stopped him.

"Detection," the sensor operator said. "Multiple detection. Powerplant signatures. Close, lord, close.

Approaching."

"Attack vectors," the tactical computer announced. "Vessel is under attack."

"Those aren't warships," Chindik said in astonished dismay as he read the screen. His head whipped back and forth, reflex in a creature attacked from all sides. Then he straightened, strode back to the commander's station, and sank into the couch.

"Combat alert," he said. The chimes began to sound, wild and sweet. "Battlestations. Deploy short-range energy weapons. Fire on any of those . . . gnats as the weapons bear. Gantry?"

"Lord?" The dockside guards were looking away from the pickup. "Lord, we hear—"

"Silence! Send parties through the sidelock and blow the feeds connecting us to the scumvermin hulk."

"Lord?"

"Obey!"

The guards scattered like mercury struck with a hammer.

"Blast-broadcast," Chindik said. "Five-minute signal, all crew rally to the
Crusher.
Then undock."

"Lord, I've been trying to activate the decoupling procedure." The bridge was filling as the standby crew ran in and slid into their stations. "My telltales say it is working, but the visual scanner shows no activity."

"Send a party from engineering to dog it manually. Engines, prepare to maneuver."

"Lord, we're still physically linked."

"I know. We'll rip loose, and take the damage. Estimate."

"Six minutes to readiness, lord."

The weapons team were working in a blur of trained unison. "Enemy closing. Velocities follow.

Preparing to engage . . . Lord, we need maneuvering room! They are too
close
for interceptor missiles."

"Make it three minutes, Engines." He turned back to the communications console. "
Get me the
commander!
"

* * *

"Down two decks, use the emergency shaft. Down two decks, use the emergency shaft."

Simeon's voice rang through the corridor. All up and down it, the doors of the residential apartments were opening. Stationers came out, first singly, then in groups, in scores. They ran past the working party at the corridor junction, grabbed whatever shapes were thrust into their hands: needlers, industrial torches, bundles of blasting explosive with fuses cobbled together out of calculators, handlights and spare consumer-goods chips. Their faces were set and tight, or grinning, or snarling wordlessly.

Simeon broke off another fragment of attention as Amos came up.

"Channa?" the Bethelite asked. Then, as she moved into sight from behind Joseph, he cried in relief. "

Channa!
" They had time for a single swift hug.

His eye widened slightly as he saw Joseph's body splashed with drying blood from knees to neck.

"Mostly not my own, Brother," Joseph said grinning.

"You are hurt."

"Cracked rib. It is nothing."

Amos nodded briskly. "So far, they are surprised," he said to Channa. "But that will not last." The fabric of the station quivered beneath their feet.

* * *

Belazir t'Marid stepped back from the door. The frame of the chair was bent in his hands, but only gouges showed on the surface. He dropped the shattered mass and looked around, his eyes narrowed.

Fool,
he thought, and suppressed anger. There would be time for recriminations later. Perhaps . . . He retrieved his equipment belt and extracted the universal microtool. There
had
to be a connecting line
somewhere
around the entranceway. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the titanium pillar that had been beneath the tapestries.

"You will pay for this, my friend," he said. "For a very long time."

"Eat shit and die, Master and God," Simeon replied.
God, that felt good. I've been
waiting
to say that.

"You screwed the pooch. You did the doo-doo, big. You've got a place in the next edition of
From the
Jaws of Victory.
"

Belazir turned away with a smile and a shrug, going to work on the exterior access panel.

"Can you feel pain?" he said as he began slicing it open with the short-range cutting laser in the tool "I hope so. Very much." He deployed the hair-thin probe.

"
And
I was playing below my level on the war games," Simeon added.