Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

More stairs. The terror of the collapsing ring passage had given all the biologicals another boost of adrenaline, so at first they climbed with new energy. But after the first landing, exhaustion came crashing back. By unspoken consent, they stopped to rest. Solana gulped water from her suit reservoir and massaged her legs.

“You think it’s still trying to catch us?” asked Jaka.

“Not like it has anything better to do,” said Daslakh.

“I think we have to assume it is,” said Sabbath. “That’s the wisest course.”

“When it does come back, what have we got?”

“Twenty seconds of laser juice,” said Pera.

“The backpack’s got about a minute,” said Anton over the voice channel.

“I’ve got plenty of dumb needles but those were my last antimatter darts,” said Sabbath.

“You carry antimatter?” asked Pera.

“I did. Just a couple of nanograms. It’s expensive, but my employers are pretty rich. They can afford it.”

“I think she means the hazard,” said Daslakh. “No concerns about accidental detonation, or high-energy photons messing with your genetic legacy?”

Sabbath just laughed. “My genetic legacy’s in a lab somewhere. And as to safety, anything that could cause an accidental release would probably pulp me and shred my suit in the process, so why worry? Anyway, they’re gone now. What about you, Jaka? I seem to recall some unused micromissiles, and you haven’t used them during these past few attacks. Saving them up for something?”

“I need to protect myself,” she said.

Nobody had any reply to that, so they resumed the climb. The apparent gravity was down to Mars level, which was a relief to sore thighs and cramped calves. Ironically, it was Sabbath, whose suit was doing most of the work for him, who got the least benefit. He had to keep puffing along bent almost double under Pera’s bulk.

At the next rest, a hundred meters up the spoke, Pera said, “I think I can make it on my own from here. My weight’s down two-thirds and I’ve still got one leg.”

“No argument from me,” said Sabbath.

“How close do you think the killer mech is?” asked Jaka.

“It’s been eighty minutes since it fell,” said Daslakh. “That’s enough time for something like Kamaitachi to make twenty round trips from the rim to the hub. It could be anywhere. No place is safe.”

“It’s up ahead,” said Pera. “Basic tactics. Ambush in a prepared position. Probably in the hub structure—more places to hide.”

Jaka pinged Solana privately. “Do you want to get out of here alive?”

“Yes,” she replied cautiously.

“I can make it happen. When it attacks again, you and I can slip away. Let the others wear it down while we take advantage of the confusion. We’ll move faster if it’s just the two of us. I’ve got some stims left, and ammo if it comes after us.”

“We can’t just leave them.”

“Yes we can! They were ready to ditch Tanaca and me after Adelmar died. They’ll abandon you just as fast. You don’t have any weapons, you’re not powerful. The only thing they want you for is ablative defense—something to occupy the killer for a few seconds while they escape.”

Solana tried to reject the idea, but found that she couldn’t. Would Atmin or Pera abandon her? Maybe. Sabbath? The man was a self-described amoral killer. Anton? She hardly knew him. “What do you want me for, then?” she asked Jaka.

“You’re very important to me, Solana. I’ll do anything to get you safely off this hab.”

Solana just looked at her. She certainly didn’t trust Jaka, but the other woman always managed to sound so damned plausible. Maybe it would be prudent to break up into smaller groups?

She asked herself, what would Utsuro do? The answer was obvious: he would help protect the others even if it cost him his life. He had been trying to protect Sabbath when Jaka killed him.

“No, Jaka,” Solana said aloud so that everyone could hear. “I don’t want to sneak away and abandon the others. Don’t speak to me again.”

“You just made a very stupid mistake,” said Jaka privately, but after that was silent.


They took a longer-than-usual rest at the final landing inside the spoke, a hundred meters below the hub. When they began moving again, they advanced military style. Pera and Anton led the way now, leapfrogging past one another with weapons hot. First Anton took a firing position, covering Pera’s advance up the stairs. As soon as Pera readied her own weapon, Anton climbed up and past her, always staying within line of sight in case Kamaitachi made an appearance.

Daslakh stayed with whoever was in the lead, scrutinizing the steps and walls for traps or any other sign of Kamaitachi’s presence.

Solana followed the second laser-armed shooter, carrying Atmin’s sphere. Behind her, Sabbath and Jaka climbed the stairs backwards, keeping two sets of eyes on watch.

The grousing and banter was gone. Everyone was silent, tense, and alert. Sheer fear overcame exhaustion.

At Level 7 the spoke staircase entered the hub at a corridor intersection, so that they had five choices of route to follow: north and south along an axial passage running the length of the hub, east and west along a lateral one going around its circumference, or up to the center.

Daslakh generated another random number and pointed silently along the axial passage toward the north end, where the docking bay was. Solana adjusted her goggles and did a slow visual zoom down the passage in visual and infrared. No movement, no hot spots. She gestured thumbs-up and they moved out.

The entire level was devoted to storage: raw materials, unprocessed waste, spares beyond Safdaghar’s ability to manufacture, emergency supplies, goods awaiting shipment, and all the miscellaneous stuff that might be useful on a hab. The axial passage was eight meters wide—big enough for a pair of cargo containers with some wiggle room. The ceiling was five meters up. The endless blank gray walls had big doors at irregular intervals, color-coded for what was stored beyond.

This section had air pressure, but they all kept their suits sealed anyway. Atmin’s travel sphere hummed along above them once again. With only eight percent apparent gravity, Pera had no difficulty walking with just one leg and the aluminum rod for a cane. All of them had to make their soles sticky to avoid uncontrolled bounding. Their footsteps sounded very loud.

After the narrow stairway, that big corridor gave everyone including Daslakh a mild case of agoraphobia. The group clumped together, following the faintly glowing yellow stripe down the center of the passage.

With nice long straight sight lines ahead and behind, Pera and Anton could advance faster—but it also meant they had to pause at each door. Anton kept watch down the hall while Pera and Daslakh checked the flank, with Pera covering the door while Daslakh opened it just wide enough to stick in one limb for a look around.

This slowed their progress to a literal crawling pace. Nobody wanted to leave any of those dozens of doors unchecked. It was too easy to imagine Kamaitachi waiting with inhuman patience, listening for footsteps outside, and bursting out to strike after the advance guard had passed. A couple of them might survive, but not many.

When the axial corridor crossed a lateral one, they moved quickly, with Sabbath and Jaka covering the crossing while the others darted across. Solana saw nothing dangerous in either direction, but of course she could only see a bit more than a sixth of the way around the hub in either direction. Kamaitachi would know that.

The floor beneath their feet was relatively safe, as there was just a layer of drainage pipes and heat regulators before the outer hull. But the ceiling made them all nervous. So high above them, cluttered with pipes, structural beams, and dark panels that once had shed light. Anything could hide up there, even a human. A smart-matter mech like Kamaitachi would have no trouble. Solana kept her gaze up there, watching for warmth or the slightest sign of motion.

Moving just a couple of hundred meters from the top of the spoke stairway to the north end of the hub cylinder felt like walking around the Jovian Ring. By the time they reached the little access stairway leading up to the arrival concourse, all the biologicals were fighting a mix of panic and exhaustion.

Daslakh waved for their attention and displayed a message on its shell, for maximum silence and security. “Vacuum beyond this door. Most dangerous stretch. Freight elevator to docking. We just have to get to the shuttle. Just 30 meters. You can make it. Be alert, be cautious. Ready?” It waited for all of them to nod before it opened the door.

There was no way to avoid the gust of venting atmosphere, which blew a plume of dust and trash into the elevator shaft. Nothing with working senses could miss that. If Kamaitachi was above them, it knew they were coming.

The cargo elevator shaft was big, designed to handle full-sized cargo containers four meters wide. An access ladder ran up one side of the shaft, in a safety niche so that someone on the ladder wouldn’t get hit by the elevator. It had been designed with humans and chimps in mind, not dinosaurs. Even with her body stretched out, Pera’s bulky hips extended well past the edge.

With Daslakh leading the way, Pera pulled herself up using one arm and her remaining leg, the laser gripped in her other hand. This close to the hab’s axis, each meter brought a noticeable reduction of the apparent gee force. Sabbath was right behind, with his powered suit ready to catch her if she slipped. Atmin followed, using the feeble manipulator arms of his travel sphere to climb the ladder. Solana was below him, also ready to act as a backstop if Atmin’s grip slipped. Jaka followed her and Anton brought up the rear once again.

The decks in the hub area were all five meters tall, except for the big space right at the center. It wasn’t a hard climb. By the time they passed Level 5 they could push upward and float free for a few seconds at a time.

At each level the big elevator doors looked more and more frightening to all of them. Was this where Kamaitachi would strike?

The answer came at Level 3, the upper level of the microgravity industrial section.

Daslakh, in front, alerted the others. “Booby trap on the ladder! Tripwire and a—” It was cut off by the flash and bang of the improvised bomb going off. One felt the sound through hands and feet rather than with ears. With no air to carry a shock wave it was more distracting than dangerous.

Which was entirely the point. With all of them dazzled by the flash, or squeezing their eyelids shut to prevent it, nobody saw Kamaitachi pop out of an electrical junction box on the other side of the shaft and launch itself at Solana.

Solana only realized what was happening when she saw Sabbath turn and dive straight down at her, knocking Atmin’s sphere aside. He slammed into her, shoving her out of the path of Kamaitachi, which hit him as Solana tumbled past Jaka and Anton before getting one sticky foot onto the wall to stop herself.

As she tumbled she got disconnected glimpses of what was happening. Headlamp beams swept around wildly, and laser flashes strobed, creating weird tableaux. Sabbath and Kamaitachi grappled with each other, the man trying to get free and the mech trying to crush him, while above and below the pair Pera and Anton snapped off laser pulses.

The comm channel was a jumble of shouts and cries. She heard Atmin cawing in terror.

She stopped herself in time to look up and see Kamaitachi wrap itself entirely around Sabbath. The mech constricted its body around his waist, and turned the inner edge into a molecule-thin blade. Pera actually jammed her laser against its body and switched to continuous beam, sending out a plume of steam and smoke.

Anton had switched his laser backpack to rapid-pulse mode, so that the underside of Kamaitachi’s body churned in constant small explosions. Even Jaka fired off one of her micromissiles, blasting a fist-sized divot in the mech’s smart-matter flesh.

Then the two halves of Sabbath’s body separated, sliced apart at the waist, and fell spinning away from the staircase in a halo of blood.

“This way!” said Daslakh as it got the door to Level 3 open. Jaka dove through at once, followed by Atmin. There was no puff of air, as that section had been empty of air for years.

Above the door, Pera spun in place, pivoting on her single foot. She had been hanging head-down to fire her laser at Kamaitachi, but now she swung her massive tail, inside an armored suit, right into the mech. The blow caught Kamaitachi as it was changing form and off-balance, and knocked it off the ladder, curving down and back across the elevator shaft. As soon as it landed, Anton bombarded it with more laser pulses as Solana and Pera climbed through the door. Then he dove through just before Daslakh triggered the emergency pyrotechnics to slam it shut.

“Keep moving! It’s not going to quit now.”

“Which way?” asked Anton.

“I think to spinward lies a—” Atmin began, but Daslakh cut him off.

“Next lateral passage, left. Thirty meters. Go!”

They went. As she turned the corner Solana could hear the creak of bending metal and the gunshot pops of cracking carbon polymers as Kamaitachi forced the door open.

They bounded up the stairs to Level 2, the microgravity residential area. As they climbed Anton struggled out of the laser backpack harness. “I’m out of juice,” he said.

“I’ve got about ten seconds left,” said Pera.

At the top she paused and waved the others past, keeping the engineering laser trained on the stairs. They rushed past, into the big open atrium in the center of the hub.

Solana had run ten meters before she realized Pera wasn’t behind her. She turned and bounded back.

Pera sat with her broad pelvis wedged into the doorway, the laser in one hand and her wide-mouthed pistol in the other.

“Come on, we’re all out,” said Solana.

“Get going. I’m staying. That vicious asshole’s taken a lot of damage. Can’t have much energy left. It stops here.”

“But—”

“I’ll catch up when it’s dead. Now go. You’re distracting me.”

Solana tried to think of something to say but nothing sounded right. “Good luck,” she said at last, and then turned and ran.

Over the comm channel Pera began to sing: “Iru infantoj de la Luna, la tago glorio e veni…” Solana recognized the famous marching song of the Lunar Volunteers—the “tunnel rats” who had fought the Glorious Unique State’s armies in the warrens deep below the Lunar surface, giving ground meter by meter until they all died. The tune was thousands of years old, with chords alien to modern music; the lyrics almost unrecognizably archaic.

Pera sang the first verse and the chorus loudly and defiantly, making the hairs on Solana’s arms stand up inside her suit. Then the dino’s breathing got heavy and ragged, with fragments of lines muttered out between grunts of exertion. When she got to the second chorus a gasp of pain choked off the first line. After that she didn’t sing the words, just carried the tune between irregular breaths and more gasps. She managed to finish the third verse, then fell silent. No singing, no breathing. Pera was gone.

Solana knew there was no point to going back for her. If Pera couldn’t stop Kamaitachi there was nothing Solana could do. She ran as fast as she could. The residential level was a bewildering series of passages, reflecting changes in use and fashion over the centuries of Safdaghar’s history. She bounced off the ceiling and around corners, ignoring the bruises in her dread of feeling the mech’s stabbing blades.

Her goggles let her see the faint infrared traces where the other two had passed, so she followed them, desperate to not be alone. But after half a dozen twists and turns she came to an intersection where the tracks split up. She chose to follow the trail leading toward where she remembered a stairwell.

In the airless maze the killer mech could be anywhere and she’d never know. Her goggles at least amplified the light, so that she wasn’t blundering around in darkness the way she had down at the rim. She didn’t dare try comms—any radio signal would be a beacon for Kamaitachi.

The infrared footprints were brighter ahead. Solana rounded a corner and then screamed as something grabbed her arm. It was Jaka. “Where is it?” she demanded. “The mech!”

Solana shook her head, panting too hard to speak.

“I split off from the others. Maybe it’ll follow them. Hold still,” said Jaka.

Solana felt a sharp jab in her shoulder, and then all her nerves tingled as if they had been asleep. She couldn’t make her arms move, or even turn her head.

“Don’t be afraid, it’s just a paralyzer round. I kept a couple,” said Jaka. “Never know when you might need them. Now, before we do anything else, let me borrow these.”

She pushed her hand through the little pressure membrane section covering Solana’s mouth and slid it up between the cowl and her nose. Jaka hooked her fingers into the top of Solana’s goggles and yanked. The paralyzer kept Solana from screaming as some of the skin around her eyes went with them.

Jaka pulled the goggles out through the mouth membrane and tucked them into one of the pockets of her vest. “Sorry. But these things are so inconvenient. I need you to do as you’re told right now. We need to get to the shuttle.” She pulled the paralyzer warhead out of Solana’s shoulder and pointed her flashlight at her own face. “Look at me. Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

She led Solana toward the nearest stairwell, making long shallow bounds in the low gravity. But at the next corridor intersection the two of them were suddenly bathed in light as something came hurtling toward them. It smacked into Jaka’s bubble helmet, knocking her away from Solana.

“Leave Solana now and do not seek again to make her serve your twisted will!” Atmin said over the comm, and Solana saw that the thing which had struck Jaka was his travel sphere. Inside it the bird looked furious, his wings extended and his beak open.

Jaka said nothing. Instead, two micromissiles left the pods on her arms and streaked toward Atmin. The first struck his diamond sphere at a shallow angle and caromed off down the corridor to explode against the floor. The second hit dead center and blasted the front of the sphere apart.

Atmin flapped his wings uselessly in vacuum, tumbling helplessly as he bounced off the ceiling and then fell. Jaka’s flashlight showed the bloody foam at his beak and around his eyes.

“No!” Solana shrieked. While Jaka was distracted she began to run, and shut off the comm so that the other woman couldn’t call her back. The stairwell was ahead, but Solana didn’t bother climbing. She launched herself up to the hub level in one great jump.

The stairwell opened into the open circular concourse that ran around the entire hub just inside the docking bay. The light of Jupiter’s vast disk shone in through the broken window, giving the whole place an orange glow like firelight. Solana could see that she was just spinward of the hab’s launch tube, which meant the old emergency airlock was just beyond.

She got just past the launch room before Jaka slammed into her from behind. The other woman made her suit gloves sticky to pin Solana to the floor beneath her and jammed her bubble helmet against the back of Solana’s head.

“Comms on!” Jaka shouted, and the contact of helmet to Solana’s skull transmitted the sound well enough for her to hear.

“No!” Solana shouted, keeping her eyes clenched shut.

“I need you. I promise I won’t sell you. I’ll keep you with me forever. We can be best friends! Just listen to me.”

Then Jaka shifted her grip and pulled Solana’s head up. “Protect me!” she shouted, and then Solana felt her jump away. She risked a look. In the orange light she saw something moving ahead of her: Kamaitachi.

It looked bad. Pera had done real damage before dying. The mech had lost mass, and Solana could see more fused patches on its surface. It moved awkwardly, pulling itself along the floor no faster than a walk. But it could keep that up forever. Her mortal flesh would need food and sleep.

Jaka’s last micromissile passed over Solana’s head and struck the mech. The warhead blasted a chunk of rigid dead matter away, but Kamaitachi ignored it.

Solana grasped her multipurpose tool and it obediently shifted into a large knife. She backed up slowly, keeping the mech in view. Perhaps she could reach another airlock?

Her back touched something. One of the operating panels for the launch tube. Solana slid sideways and got behind it. Kamaitachi continued its inexorable approach. All Solana could hear were her own heart and breathing. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, though she knew it wasn’t true. “Not afraid, not afraid.”

She backed up another couple of meters and her foot touched something solid. The tube. Solana felt behind her with her free hand as she slid along it. There: the opening. A three-meter section of the tube’s top half was open, the lid slid back for loading. She stepped over the edge into the tube. Could she seal it from inside? How long would it protect her?

No. She wasn’t going to trap herself, not with a cargo pod full of dead children. Solana stepped out of the tube on the other side, keeping it between her and Kamaitachi. Stay mobile, she told herself. Protect Jaka.

The mech approached steadily. It hauled itself into the same gap in the tube.

Solana acted almost without thinking. One fast leap took her to the tube, and she grabbed the handle of the lid with both hands and slammed it shut with all her strength.

The mech battered at the diamond lid. Solana looked around frantically and saw the panel. She slapped the launch button. It turned green, but her heart sank as nothing else seemed to happen. Too many years of jolting, too much vacuum exposure.

Then she realized she could see through the tube where the cargo pod had been. It was gone. So was Kamaitachi. Solana looked down the tube to the window at the end, where it passed into the docking bay. Far beyond the mouth of the bay she could just make out two tiny bright specks receding against the dim gold sky.

She stood still for a moment, trying to understand that the danger was gone. The killer mech wasn’t hunting her anymore. She didn’t need to run. With that thought, she began to shake all over, unsure of whether to laugh or cry.

A minute or an hour later—she couldn’t tell—Solana felt Jaka’s hand touch her shoulder. The bubble helmet pressed against her cowl. “Comms?”

She opened the channel but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Come with me. Let’s get out of here.”

Solana let the other woman lead her toward the airlock. But as they approached the door she saw a figure standing there. It was Anton.

“Solana got rid of the mech. Where were you hiding?” asked Jaka.

“I was looking for her, and you. I found Atmin,” he said. His voice sounded like iron.

“Well, it looks like we’re the only ones left. I guess you can come along if you behave yourself.”

“Thank you,” said Anton. He stepped aside to let them into the airlock. But as Jaka brushed past him he grabbed her bubble helmet with both arms, blocking her face with his hands.

“Stop him! Kill him!” she shrieked.

“Save yourself,” said Anton, looking right at Solana.

She felt the handle of the tool in her hand. It obediently changed to the default form she’d picked. Keeping her eyes locked onto Anton’s, she lunged, stabbing the ultrasharp blade through the skinsuit into Jaka’s throat. The shriek turned to a gurgle as blood foamed out into vacuum.

Jaka struggled and kicked, but Anton didn’t release his grip on the helmet until she went limp. He watched Solana the entire time, only closing his eyes when he put Jaka’s body down.

“Do you know where your goggles are?” he asked after a minute.

She knelt and got them out of Jaka’s vest, but didn’t put them on. Instead she turned and walked into the airlock. Anton followed.


Back | Next
Framed