The Sheriff of Yrnameer (19 page)

“Cole!” yelled Nora from down below.

“Right!” said Cole, snatching the gun from Bacchi before he could protest. “Let’s go!”

Cole lost his grip and slid down the lower half of the hatchway ladder, collapsing in a heap at the bottom.

“Cole!” said Nora. “What is this robot, or robots, doing here? And this Grey?!”

“Qx”-x-’–’,” said Fred.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,” said Cole.

“Well, get up then! We have to go!”

“Contact with atmosphere in fifteen seconds. Twelve. Eleven …”

Cole banged the disengage button a third time, and it didn’t work, and a fourth time, and it didn’t work again.

“Eight … seven … six …”

“Cole?” said Nora.

“Four … three …”

He took a deep breath and placed his finger on the button and depressed it very, very gently. There was a fierce jolt and they were free, and Cole punched the afterburners, pushing the G forces as much as he dared until he knew they were clear of the danger.

Behind them the Success!Sat was floating peacefully, continuing its rotations, canted at a forty-five-degree angle to the surface of the planet below. Then the edge of the ring closest to the planet began to glow and spark as it dipped into the outer layers of the atmosphere, drawing a glowing line in its wake.

In the escape pod, Cole and Nora watched the monitor in horrified silence. The satellite began to tilt, the top of the spindle traveling faster than the bottom, the tilting accelerating as the structure edged farther into the denser molecules beneath it. There was a sudden and spectacular burst of sparks and cinders from the lowest ring, like someone poking a burning log, and a shudder traveled the length of the craft.

The glowing ring was breaking apart, the leading half of it bending back and peeling away, and then the central pillar cracked midway, the upper portion lagging too far behind the lower. Cole caught a brief glimpse of Kenneth’s ship, still attached to the satellite, before silent explosions tore through the structure, spreading debris that created hundreds of flaming contrails as the pieces burned up in the atmosphere.

“All those people,” said Nora quietly.

Cole closed his eyes. He let his arms float up. He’d never been happier to be in zero gravity.

“What happened to your shirt?” asked Nora. Cole realized he was naked from the waist up.

“Mmmph,” he said.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Mmmph.”

“You’ll explain at some point who the Grey is, and what the robot is doing on board?”

“Mmmm.”

There was a pause. Cole breathed deeply.

“Why don’t you go take a nice hot mist, and put a heal patch on that wound, and then when you’re ready we can bend again?”

She almost sounded like she cared. Cole nodded, eyes still closed.

He kept them half closed as he glided gently down the corridor toward his cabin, letting his surroundings become an indistinct blur. He closed his eyes completely again once he was in the capsule-shaped mister, the moist heat seeping into his aching, exhausted body—exquisite—while the painkillers in the heal patch soothed the bite on his shoulder. All that was left now was to bend, to get to Yrnameer, and then he’d sleep for a week. He was nearly asleep now, the capsule warm and dim and womblike, Cole’s thoughts beginning to wander and dissolve into a pleasantly nonsensical
jumble. He realized as he nodded off that for the first time in days—no, weeks—he felt totally and utterly relaxed.

Then the screaming started, and Joshua burst into his cabin, rebounding off the far wall.

“Charlie’s in the ship!”

“Charlie!” yelled Cole.
“Charlie
!”

Cole hurtled down a passageway, his speed reckless, trying to will the pounding in his ears to lessen so that he could hear.

“Charlie
!” he bellowed again.

The giggle again, a high-pitched, strangled, grotesque thing, coming from the passageway that opened above him as he flew through an intersection. He grabbed at a handrail to stop and reverse directions, his grip skidding and failing, sending him tumbling to bounce off the walls and ceilings before he could kick off one surface, then another, forward, up, now entering and traveling the correct corridor toward the receding laughter.

“Charlie!” shouted Cole. “I’m coming for you, Charlie!”

Cole didn’t remember putting his pants on or grabbing the Fire-stick 25, but he was at least halfway dressed and the gun was clenched tight in his fist when he and Joshua reached the children’s cabins. Philip was writhing in the air in the corridor, clutching his bleeding forehead, children crowded in the doorway, screaming, “The man took Aleela! He took Aleela!”

“Stay here!” Cole told Joshua.

“Why? I want to come with you!”

“Because he might come
back
!” shouted Cole as he kicked off in the direction the children were pointing.

As he sailed down the hall he checked the clip of the gun. One shell.

One shot.

He jammed the pistol into his waistband so he could use both
hands to pull himself along the handrails. His hair and skin were still wet. The heal patch had somehow come loose on his shoulder and was flapping around. He angrily tore it off, flinging it away to undulate gently in the corridor. He reached the intersection at the end of the hall and jerked himself to a halt. Which way? Left? Right? Straight?

“Charlie!”

He chose the left-hand branch, first pushing himself backward so he could leap off the wall for speed. Another intersection. Nothing. Up. His heart was pounding, and not just from the exertion.

“Charlie!”

A third intersection and he paused again, spinning himself first one way, then the other, then back again. Just as he was about to pull himself along to the right he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and he turned, feeling himself go cold.

Charlie was hovering at the other end of the corridor, grinning, Nora’s gun in one hand. In the other he was holding a struggling little girl by one arm, his hand very thick around her tiny birdlike wrist. Aleela, the little girl with the claw.

“Charlie!”

“Hi, Cole!” Charlie called merrily, and even from that distance Cole could see the craziness in his eyes. And then Charlie giggled and pushed off, dragging the screaming girl with him as he disappeared around the corner.

So now Cole was in pursuit, panting, his arms and legs and lungs burning, following the hideous giggle that mocked and taunted him, now from the front, now the left, now behind him, the little girl’s periodic screams filling Cole with nausea.

He reached an intersection, stopped, listened.

“Charlie!” he shouted.
“Charlie
!”

The laughter again, from the left.

“Charlie!
I’m coming, Charlie!!”

He flew past a branch point and saw him again, a glimpse of legs and feet vanishing around a corner, and Cole swiped at a handhold and missed, cartwheeling head over heels until he slammed into and bounced off the floor, leaving a red splat from his shoulder wound.

He grabbed at a rail and pulled himself back into forward motion, turning the corner to the passage where he last spotted Charlie.

“Charlie!”

He reached another intersection and paused, started off again, took a right-hand turn, thought better of it and doubled back the other way.

The girl screaming again.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” he shouted, hearing his own voice crack. The screaming cut off suddenly and Cole pounded a fist against the wall, trying not to think of what might be happening.

“I’ll kill you Charlie! You hurt her and I’ll kill you!”

Another intersection. Pause. Nothing. Go.

“Charlie
!”

Straight here? No, right. No,
straight
. Down this ladder.

Wait.

Listen.

Nothing.

Forward. Don’t think, just go.

Another intersection, his breath ragged. Wait and listen. Nothing.

“Charlie!”

He rounded a corner and stopped.

Before him was the longest passageway in the ship, dead-ending at an air lock. In front of the air lock was Charlie. He was still holding Aleela by the arm but now she was limp, her head flopping slowly at an odd angle.

“CHARLIE
!”

“Hi, Cole! You found me!”

And then Charlie started to laugh again.

Cole felt something ignite inside of him, a white-hot blast furnace of hatred and rage, consuming him barely contained in his being.

“Let. Her. Go,” he said through clenched teeth, trembling with fury, and realized he had whispered it.

“Stay back!” said Charlie, pointing Nora’s gun at him.

“Let her go,” said Cole again, louder, knowing it didn’t matter anymore. He pulled the gun from his waist.

“I’ll shoot you!” said Charlie.

“Let her go
!” screamed Cole.

Charlie fired, the recoil shoving him back against the air-lock door behind him, Aleela floating like a rag doll.

Cole heard the bullet strike the wall near his head, heard the series of ricochets, heard Charlie firing a second time as Cole drew
his legs up against the wall and pushed off with all his might like a swimmer doing a kick turn, launching himself headfirst down the corridor, a human missile aimed straight at Charlie. Charlie fired a third, a fourth, a fifth time, the caroming bullets whining and buzzing in a murderous web around Cole as he rocketed down the passageway. A sixth shot and Cole felt a sharp wind past his right ear, then a sudden burning in his side, but he was already on fire, he was fire itself, he was the core of a thousand suns, and Charlie’s bullets couldn’t hurt him as Cole bore down on him.

Charlie, who was screaming “Stop! Stop!” and firing the gun, his crazed eyes locked on Cole’s like he was mesmerized by the fate rushing upon him, and Cole knew that at that moment his eyes were crazier than Charlie’s.

“Stop!” screamed Charlie again, but Cole couldn’t stop, and just before he plowed into Charlie he jammed out his left arm, stiff and rigid, so that the first thing that hit was his hand on Charlie’s throat, carrying him back to slam him against the air-lock door.

Cole felt the jolt through his whole body, the impact jarring the gun loose from his grip as he and Charlie rebounded together in a chaotic jumble of limbs, the lifeless girl now floating free. But Cole kept his choke hold on Charlie’s neck, squeezing harder, and grabbed on with his other hand, too. He saw stars but didn’t feel it as Charlie clubbed him on the side of the head with the gun, then again, the hallway starting to go dark, Charlie making a gagging noise as Cole gripped harder. Charlie jammed his other hand against Cole’s chin, forcing his head back, then scrabbled at his face, trying to claw at Cole’s eyes, Cole shaking his head to avoid the gouging fingers. Charlie clubbed him again, weaker this time, his eyes bugging out, and then he seemed to remember what the gun was really for, and just as he was trying to place the tip against Cole’s temple to blow his brains out, Cole let go with his right hand, snagged his slowly tumbling gun out of the air, stabbed the barrel into Charlie’s chest like he was trying to impale him with it, and pulled the trigger.

When they found Cole he was floating in the corridor, cradling the little girl. She was crying. She wasn’t dead. Her head just bent that way. Cole was shivering so violently he could barely speak.

“Oh,
farg
!” said Bacchi, eyeing the bloody splatter on the air-lock
door, a crimson bull’s-eye surrounding an irregular blackened circle with a bullet hole in the center. “Where’s Charlie?”

“Out the f-f-f-farging air lock,” stuttered Cole.

“Is she all right?” asked Nora.

Cole nodded, his teeth chattering.

“Are you all right?”

Cole nodded again. Nora had to gently unpeel his arms to take Aleela from him.

Joshua was staring at the mark on the door, wide-eyed. The blood was already beginning to turn brown and fade, the self-cleaning wall performing as advertised.

“Wow,” said Joshua. He turned to look at Cole, his eyes full of admiration. “Wow,” he said again.

“Get out of here,” said Cole, suddenly angry.

“Joshua,” said Nora, “go check on the other children.”

“But—” said Joshua.

“Get out of here!” roared Cole. He placed a booted foot on Joshua’s shoulder and kicked him away, the two of them tumbling approximately the same distance in opposite directions.

“Cole,” said Nora, “your side.”

Cole raised his left arm and looked down. A misshapen bullet protruded from his flank, like it had expended most of its energy bouncing off the walls and finally came to a halt when it encountered one of his ribs. He reached down with trembling fingers and pried the bullet loose and examined it, turning it this way and that. Then his expression changed, as if someone had reminded him of something important.

“Ooooooooowww
!” he said.

“Oh,
farg,”
said Bacchi again.

Cole touched the wound on his side and looked at the blood on his hand. He grunted.

“Your head’s bleeding, too,” said Bacchi.

Cole put his other hand up to his temple and looked at that blood. He nodded.