Trident's Forge (32 page)

“I'm fine,” she called down. “Just climb.”

Spurred on by the rising sun, a gust of wind kicked up through the canyon, blowing dust and sand into Benson's face. But at least it was burning off the dew. Short, bristly scrub brush clung tenaciously to the face of the seventy-degree canyon wall. Benson wished he had half of their grip. He worked his way down, slow and steady, right until he ran out of rock. Invisible from above, an overhang ran for hundreds of meters in either direction. From his vantage point, there was no way to know how deep the overhang was.

“Ah, I've got a problem down here,” he shouted up to Kexx.

“What's wrong, Benson?” Kexx called down, voice strained.

“There's an overhang.”

“So?”

“So? So I'm not a gecko.”

“What's a–”

“I mean I can't stick to the ceiling, Kexx!”

Kexx grunted, then spoke at Kuul, zer words coming out rapid and clipped. After a short argument, Kexx looked back down at Benson. “Let go of the rock. We will lower you down.”

“Are you nuts?”

“What are–”

“Oh for God's sake. You'll have to hold my whole weight, and I don't even know if the rope is long enough to reach the next holds.”

“Then what do you want to do, Benson?”

Climb back up, walk all the way back to the village, find and eat that damned chicken while I wait for the shuttle, take an hour long shower, fuck my wife's brains out, then take another shower,
he thought.

“You're sure you can take the weight?” Benson asked.

“For a short time, yes,” Kexx said.

“How sure?”

“You're stalling.”

“Damn right I am,” Benson mumbled. He took a deep, cleansing breath and tried to get his surging heartrate under control. He moved down as far as he could, taking out what little slack there was in the ropes.

“OK. Are you ready?” Benson shouted.

“We are, Benson.”

Wish I was
, he thought. “Mei, if this doesn't work, tell Theresa I love her.”

“Tell her yourself,” Mei shouted back irritated, clutching her Atlantian climber for dear life.

Benson shook his head, then closed his eyes tight. His blood pounded in his ears. His palms were sweating so much that even if he didn't let go, he would probably slip off anyway. All he had to do was… let go. “Here goes nothing,” he said to no one in particular. Summoning all of his courage, Benson relaxed his fingertips.

For a brief moment, he floated in the air, weightless and free as though he were playing Zero back onboard the Ark. But then the ropes reached the end of their limited elasticity and Kexx and Kuul absorbed the full weight of their load for the first time. They grunted under the sudden strain, and the makeshift harness dug into Benson's groin hard enough that he was pretty sure whatever chances he'd had of fathering a child had been cut in half.

Kexx and Kuul did their best to match each other's pace, but it was impossible. Kuul shouted out something angry.

“What did ze say?” Benson asked.

“Ze said you should start skipping meals.”

“It's mostly muscle!”

“Can you reach the rock face yet?” Kexx said hurriedly.

Benson looked ahead. The wall was only a meter and a half away, but still out of reach. “Not yet. Lower me down more.” The pair of Atlantians obliged haltingly, jerking Benson with one rope and then the other, their progress painstakingly slow.

“Can you go any faster?” Benson asked.

“We can cut the ropes and you will go a
lot
faster,” Kexx bit back.

“Sorry.”

“Quiet.”

Benson shut his mouth as they lowered him down another meter. Another. Then, they stopped. He looked up to see if they'd hit a snag, but it was worse than that. Kexx and Kuul had reached the edge of the undercut. There was no more rope to play out. He looked down through his dangling feet to gauge the remaining drop. His ankles were not encouraged by what he saw. He reached out a hand to get a hold on the cliff face, but he was still a half meter shy.

There was only one way out. He'd have to swing for it and pray one of the Atlantians didn't slip.

“Hang tight,” Benson called to Kexx. “I'm going to swing for the cliff.” Benson pumped his legs like a child on a playground swing. He shifted forward, building momentum with each pump, adding precious centimeters to each swing of his pendulum. Kuul grunted loudly.

“Hurry!” Kexx shouted through gritted teeth as zer strange, boneless hands melted into the craggy rock, desperate to maintain grip.

Benson reached out his hand and growled, trying to grow it another few millimeters by willpower alone. His fingertip lightly brushed against the rock. The rope harness dug into his groin so hard he began to feel pins and needles in his feet and calves, while the rope began to fray from the repeated swinging where it rubbed against the lip of the overhang. A few more and either the ropes would snap, or Kexx and Kuul would finally tire. If either of them fell, the other would be left carrying the full weight of all three of them. There was no way even Kuul could hold on under such strain.

“Fuck this,” Benson said and spun around to put the soles of his feet toward the rock. As soon as his shoes made contact, he pushed off with a snap of his football-hardened legs, sending him far away from the cliff.

The sudden jerk finally proved too much for Kexx's grip. Ze broke loose from the rock just as Benson's swing reached its apogee, sending zer sliding down the face of the cliff and scrambling for a fresh hold. The sudden slack on one side of Benson's body threw off his line as he started to pendulum back toward the rock. There was no time to adjust his aim. Benson shouted a curse as the rock came rushing for his face. His eyes darted around, looking for handholds. He spotted one, maybe another. They would have to do. His hands shot out and fumbled at them even as the unforgiving rock knocked the wind out of his lungs. Struggling for breath, Benson got two fingers, three, into one of the craggy holds. A foot found another, slipped, then planted more firmly. Benson's other hand got a solid grip on a knobby protrusion.

He braced himself for Kexx's body to tumble down behind him, the lifeline streaming until it suddenly went taunt and yanked Benson, then Kuul, off the cliff and sent them all tumbling down to the rocks below.

Benson closed his eyes and awaited the inevitable.

T
heresa walked
behind the line of recruits lying prone on the ground, one hundred and eighty degrees away from the muzzles of the P-120 personal defense weapons they were about to fire for the first time. They'd set up a firing range out beyond the shuttle runway pointing toward the ocean where the only victims of stray bullets would be fish. Not that her location made her feel the least bit safer with a dozen high-powered rifles in the hands of utter neophytes.

In truth, she wasn't significantly better. The caseless propellant the rifles burned was chemically complex and expensive to produce. They weren't in the habit of wasting them, even on practice. Theresa had put less than a hundred live rounds down range, which perversely made her one of the dozen most experienced shooters in the colony. Now she was tasked with training a hundred more. It was like the blind leading the blind through a fireworks factory holding a torch.

Not that she really cared at the moment. Bryan was dead. She'd skipped straight to the anger step of the grieving process and intended to stay there.

“Keep both eyes open. Don't focus on the reticule. Focus on the target beyond,” she said, trying to inject the weight of experience she didn't actually have into her voice. “Imagine the target has gravity, and it's pulling the reticule toward it. When they line up, squeeze the trigger slowly and evenly until the gun fires. You may commence–”

BANG!

Theresa shot a withering look at the impatient trainee. “–firing.”

The rest of the line clicked off the physical safeties on their rifles, took careful aim, and promptly hit absolutely nothing. In the bay, several fish fell prey to weapons they'd never had the opportunity to evolve defenses against. It was going to be a long afternoon. A call alert popped up in her vision, a red flashing border marking the call as urgent. It was from Feng.

She sent a message to Korolev on the far side of the line.

The constable nodded, then stepped to the middle of the line and took over range safety officer duties with a thumbs up. Theresa faded away from the noise and concussion of the rifles until she could hear herself think again. She connected the call.

Theresa bristled at the ridiculous question.

Feng demanded.

Theresa felt a spasm of fear. They'd known someone had been messing around in the Ark's peripherals, but to be that deep inside the core network? That meant crew members were in on the crime. In on Mahama's murder. She fought back the panic. Whoever they were, no matter how deep they'd burrowed, they were operating in the shadows and wouldn't do well once the light started shining. She had to be that light.

she said.

Feng said.

Theresa's head bobbed along with the confirmation of their theory. Motive, check.

Theresa gasped.

just
had her here.>

Theresa's lips tightened.

Theresa was shouting even through her plant.

Theresa smiled.

The link dropped.

Count on it
, Theresa thought viciously. “Pavel, shut it down. We have work to do.”

T
hey let
the electric cart coast to a stop two blocks away from Hallstead's apartment. Korolev adjusted his riot helmet, crinkling the aluminum foil lining its inside.

“I can't believe you talked me into a mad hatter helmet,” he moaned. “It's hot as balls in here.”

“It's either that or let her give you a heart attack.”

“Thought you said they wouldn't use it out in the open.”

“They won't if they're thinking clearly. But backed into a corner? Who knows?” Theresa leaned back to the third man in the cart, Lindqvist, as he went over his rifle one more time. The gun was probably overkill. The linebacker took up the whole rear bench seat by himself as it was.

“You ready with that thing?”

“I think so, ma'am.”

“You think, or you know?”

“I mean, yes ma'am.”

“Good. There's no room for error here. We don't know what we're going to find in there. She may be armed, she's certainly dangerous. But I'd really, really like to take her alive. So hold your fire with that cannon unless absolutely necessary.”

“Roger that.”

Lindqvist had volunteered, despite the fact that the need to stay linked to his gun through his plant meant his helmet couldn't be lined with foil. Theresa had explained the risk, but it hadn't deterred him in the least.

Theresa consulted her tablet and queried Hallstead's plant location. She was in her living room. She dug a little further into the house's systems and found a video was streaming to the wall display. “OK, she's watching TV. Pavel, with me. Lindqvist, go around back and make sure she doesn't try to escape when we ring the bell.”

The big man nodded and hustled down the alley. Korolev got out his stun-stick and walked quietly and purposefully at Theresa's side up to the front door of the small, utilitarian house. It was a standard four room, single-story unit distinguishable from hundreds of others only by the numbers on its door frame. The house was clean, but Hallstead had made no attempts to decorate or otherwise individualize the exterior, to the point that its very plainness made it stand out.

Theresa and Korolev took positions on either side of the doorway. She didn't want to risk requesting a warrant for the raid. Anyone who could hack the central network and rewrite plant source code could easily set up bots to alert them to something like a warrant and bolt before they ever arrived. Instead, they were here under the guise of a “welfare check,” hoping that Hallstead was careless enough to either leave evidence laying around, or tried to run, anything incriminating. But if the inside of her house was as orderly as the outside, and she managed to keep her cool, there wasn't much Theresa would be able to do.

Well, nothing that would hold up in court and not get her fired. Not that she was in a mood to care.

Korolev nodded that he was ready to go. But even as Theresa punched her emergency override code into the door's keypad, something felt wrong. She hit the “Enter” key and the lock clicked. Korolev swung the door open immediately and swept into the entry hallway. Theresa was half a step behind him, both of their stun-sticks held in the ready position. The first thing she noticed was a sharp, almost metallic smell she didn't recognize.

“What's that smell?” she whispered.

“Not sure. Cleaning solvent?”

“Ms Hallstead,” Theresa called. “We've had a report of strange sounds coming from your house. We're here to check on you.” There was no answer. They turned the corner into the sparse living room. A faux leather couch took up most of the rear wall, the impression of an ass worn into its cushion on the left side. A cheap throw rug, scuffed acrylic coffee table, and a vase with plastic flowers filled out the rest of the room. Ass print aside, it looked like a demo unit. On the wall display, two women in strappy leather outfits pleasured each other with rather heavily modified power tools.

Korolev sniffed. “Our girl is a kinky one.”

“She's supposed to be sitting right there.” Theresa pointed at the couch, waving her handheld.

“Check the bathroom?” Korolev asked.

The truth hit Theresa like a punch to the gut. Hallstead had a lift car to catch in less than thirty minutes. Who would be sitting on their couch watching porn thirty minutes before moving out of their house forever? “She hacked her plant locator. She was never here.”

“To the beanstalk?” Korolev asked.

“To the beanstalk, fast.”

They recalled Lindqvist and ran back to the cart. Korolev hopped behind the wheel and threw it into gear. “Head for the dock?”

“Yes,” Theresa crawled into the passenger seat. “No, wait.” She punched through a few screens on her handheld. “The ferry is already casting off.”

“Shit,” Korolev spat.

“No, that's good. If Hallstead is on it, she's got nowhere to run.”

“Unless she wants to swim a kilometer back to shore.”

“Exactly. Take us to the quadcopters. We might still beat the ferry to the anchor station.”

The cart's suspension sagged under the fresh weight of Lindqvist. They took off for the airfield with a whine of electric motors. They were in luck. One of the small scout helicopters was still sitting on the flight line. Theresa jumped out of the cart even before Korolev had brought it to a full stop and ran for the cockpit. “C'mon Pavel. Lindqvist, take the cart and wait for us at the dock.”

The large man acknowledged the order and moved to the driver's seat while she and Korolev strapped themselves into the copter's harnesses. Neither of them were certified pilots, but fortunately, they didn't need to be. Theresa simply punched in their destination and the autopilot system spun up the four rotors mounted to the corners and dusted off.

They made the short flight out to the anchoring rig in silence, passing over the ferry as it slowly made its way from the natural harbor out into the open ocean a kilometer out. The planetside end of the Ark's space elevator was mounted to an enormous floating platform with several sets of powerful thruster pods. Most of the time, they simply kept it stationary within the gentle outflow of current coming from the mouth of the river. But in the event a powerful enough hurricane threatened to damage the rig, they could move it many tens of kilometers out of the predicted path.

The quadcopter pitched backward slightly as it slowed for its final approach to the small landing pad on the far corner of the platform. The ten meter-wide, wafer-thin elevator tether reached straight and true to the heavens until it passed beyond the atmosphere, where it appeared to shrink to a one-dimensional line glowing white. In addition to providing a track for the lift cars plying up and down its length, it also served double duty, powering the cars via a photovoltaic coating only a few molecules thick, turning the entire tether into a solar array several tens of thousands of kilometers long.

“OK, what's the plan?” Korolev asked as the quadrotor settled onto its skids.

Theresa unbuckled herself and threw open the cabin door. “We go to the loading dock and check everyone coming off the ferry until we catch her.”

“And if she resists?”

“Oh, please tell me we're that lucky,” Theresa said with venom in her voice.

“Hey, chief,” Korolev grabbed her at the elbow, gently but firmly. “Remember our job here.”

She yanked her arm free. “You think I've forgotten?”

“I just want to see this done by the book so it sticks. I know how you feel right now, I want to crush skulls too, but I know you'd feel infinitely worse if this gets botched up and somebody walks on a technicality.”

“She killed Bryan, Pavel. I'm sure of it. You really think I'm going to let anyone walk away from this?” Her voice was flat, emotionless. It wasn't a threat. It was a statement of fact. For a split second, Korolev faltered under her stare.