Moonstruck. Part 23

The explosion that rocked the Consensus penetrated even the chaos into which he had once more been plunged. The mysterious disorientation stopped, but his still-quaking limbs refused at first to function. A searing wind burst onto the bridge, tossing the duty crew like leaves. The bridge displays went blank; his dazed mind needed a moment to deduce that the hull cameras had protectively retracted. It was an automatic mechanism, normally triggered by the heat of an atmospheric entry. Hull sensors reported a soaring temperature. As bodily control returned, he slapped the audio reset on the alarm panel; its many flas.h.i.+ng lights told him everything that he needed. Fire suppressant sprayed from nozzles in the ceiling.

"Brelf, you're on damage control," he snapped at the first live crewman he saw. His attention remained fixed on his s.h.i.+p's defense. "Rualf, report. Rualf." There was no response. The alarm panel revealed a raging fire in the cargo hold where the troupe worked. It seemed impossible that anyone there had survived.

Communications with the robots ran from the incinerated controls in the hold to the s.h.i.+p's radio center to antennae in the hull. The high-gain antenna dishes, like the exterior cameras, were retracted and useless. One antenna, however, was molded into the hull itself. That configuration made the antenna necessarily omnidirectional, dispersing energy with profligacy in all directions, but his immediate needs were short range. With that antenna he broadcast to the robots. He couldn't control them with bridge equipment, but

he needed to see through their sensors.Only three robots responded, and their images came from close to the tarmac. Just one view showed the s.h.i.+p-and that picture made him knot his digits in rage and fear. Amid billowing black smoke, flames licked hungrily at the Consensus. The s.h.i.+p had tipped, its stern flattened where it had struck the ground.

More and more lights glowed on the alarm panel. "Captain," called Brelf. "Fire is spreading throughout

the s.h.i.+p. Most controls are damaged, unresponsive. The drive . . ."

The crewman did not need to complete his thought. Without the interstellar drive, nothing else mattered.

They were marooned, at the mercy of the freaks whose extinction he and Rualf had conspired to cause.

Without access to the high-gain antennas, Grelben could not even control the satellite weapons. They were without hope, he thought.

But not without options . . .

* * * Images of the Consensus in the grip of flames looked down at Swelk from three walls. Her view of the command-trailer instrumentation was suddenly unimpeded. Darlene had been the first out the door; others, to whom no one had bothered introducing Swelk, soon followed. She cringed the first time after the explosion that the door opened, but the horrifying dizziness did not strike. The fire must have destroyed Kyle's weapon.The soldiers who remained had eyes only for their equipment . . . while her vision, as always, went in a full circle. No one was watching her. She had either been forgotten in the excitement, or the humans had excessive trust in their locked door. She tapped out the key code that unlatched the trailer door. A hinge squealed as she pushed against the door. As she jumped out, one of the uniformed men in the trailer lunged at her. He crashed to the trailer's floor, half of his torso hanging outside-but caught her by her belt. She tore loose, but the pocket in which she kept her computer ripped. The computer fell to the pavement just outside the hangar. There was no time to stop for it. She screamed as she ran, "I must help. I must help." Those giving chase gave no signs of having understood her.

An eye aimed antimotionward, toward the hangar, saw Kyle. He was b.l.o.o.d.y, agitated, and screaming. The evidently unbroken computer translated, "Don't shoot." Not waiting to see if that advice would be taken, she fled toward the Consensus. She ran no faster than the men in pursuit-an unlame Krul would have left them far behind-but with her three-limbed ability to veer instantly in any direction, she was much more agile. She could also see them coming, from whatever bearing, and her shortness made her hard to grab. She dodged and bobbed, unable to outpace them, but-however precariously-at liberty. Bright red trucks raced toward the Consensus, sirens blaring. From the hangar came the shouted words, anguished even in translation, "I'm sorry, Swelk. I'm sorry."

Reaching the s.h.i.+p, she found she was more tolerant of heat than the humans. She stood near the blaze, panting in exhaustion, for the moment beyond the soldiers' reach.

Through the flame-filled airlock came the panicked bellowing of the swampbeasts.

* * * Swelk had run here impulsively, unable to stand idly by when the only Krulirim within light-years were imperiled. No, be realistic . . . the survivors would all die if they did not get out.

Another terrified howl rang out. Despite the roar of the fire she knew it was Stinky. His renewed call was joined by his mate. As flames billowed from the open airlock, Swelk realized, Something inside is fanning those flames. She galloped around the hull, sticking close to the s.h.i.+p where the soldiers could not follow. A second airlock was wide open; she could feel the draft of air being sucked into this hold by the raging fire. This hold's ramp was unextended, but the landing foot's collapse brought the entry within reach. She clambered aboard.

She found herself inside the zoo hold. Her Girillian friends screamed in fear, hurling themselves again and again against their cages. Fire suppressant streamed from nozzles overhead. She ran between the pens, unlatching doors. The heat seared her lungs. "Get outside!" she screamed at a Krul she found fallen but stirring beside a cage. Soot-covered, he was unrecognizable. Whether the disorienting weapon or the explosion-or perhaps both-had downed him she could not tell. "Out the hold airlock."

Ignoring her own advice, Swelk limped deeper into the s.h.i.+p. Two crewman stumbled by her, bleeding, dazed, purposeless. "To the zoo hold," she called as she pushed on. Flickering emergency lights guided her to the bridge, through corridors ever thicker with smoke.

She arrived, finally, gasping for breath, at the command center. Still bodies littered the room. Only one Krul worked purposefully: Captain Grelben. He toiled feverishly at a console, so rapt in his duties that he did not at first see her enter. He ignored the alarm panel that glowed from top to bottom in the purple blinkings of worst-case disaster. "Captain. Come away."

"Swelk." His voice was cold. "I trust we have you to thank for our difficulties." A coughing fit interrupted him. "It does not matter. Your freaks are doomed." Predestined in his mind to fail, because of Krulchukor prejudice? Or condemned by his plans, by some twisted revenge the captain still strove to inflict? "Captain. There is still time to get off the s.h.i.+p. We can live here. The humans are good people." The smoke was choking her. "Will you let them find their own way?"

Grelben reared up on twos, sweeping the third limb through a broad arc. It somehow encompa.s.sed the death and destruction on the bridge and throughout the s.h.i.+p. A hacking convulsion deep in his torso made him wobble, his upraised limb tremble, ruining the grand gesture. "This is their way. Death is their way. So run away, mutant, but it will do you no good.

"Before I am done, you and your disgusting freaks will experience death on a scale beyond your wildest imaginings."

* * * Kyle pressed a b.l.o.o.d.y cloth to his head. Darlene sat beside him, her back, like his, braced against the hangar wall. Fire trucks were spraying foam on and around the s.h.i.+p. They had had some success containing the blaze, but the flames leaping from the Consensus itself were growing. Blake's men ringed the s.h.i.+p from a distance.

"Not bad for an amateur." Blake, who looked as spent as Kyle felt, was on his feet and in complete charge. Several of the Delta Force stood nearby. Whether the compliment referred to Kyle's efforts or Andrew Wheaton's suicide attack was unclear. "You'll be pleased to know the weapons satellites are inactive."

"That is good news." Kyle's tone belied his words. Swelk had gone into the burning s.h.i.+p. Could she possibly survive?

"So are we safe now?" asked the colonel. "Is it over?"

"I don't know. Even if the aliens are dead, there are systems on board we know nothing about." Kyle tried to think past his pain and worry. The Krulirim had an interstellar drive, artificial gravity,

bioconverters-incredible technologies he did not begin to understand. How could he possibly say whether the fiery destruction of such equipment would release uncontrolled forces? That was just one of many reasons why the plan had necessarily been capture of the s.h.i.+p. Quit it, he told himself sternly. Don't waste time on useless speculation. What can you usefully contribute? "They have a fusion reactor. You can think of it as a controlled thermonuclear bomb. The biggest danger may be the reactor blowing."

"How big a problem are we talking?" Blake was amazingly matter of fact.

"We have no way of knowing. If they're good engineers, though, there will be safety shutdowns." Kyle's head throbbed as secondary explosions wracked the stars.h.i.+p. "Be happy for one difficulty we don't have.

Swelk knew that their reactor fused helium-three. If they'd used hydrogen isotopes, like our

experimental fusion reactors, we'd have faced an enormous explosion. Think Hindenberg, but much bigger-even without a nuclear event."

A commando had appeared at Blake's side. "Sir, you should see this. It was found on the tarmac near the

command trailer."

This was Swelk's pocket computer. No sooner had Kyle recognized it than it spoke. "Captain. Come away.""Swelk," answered a second voice. "I trust we have you to thank for our difficulties. It does not matter.

Your freaks are doomed."

"I remember," whispered Darlene. "Swelk had hidden a pocket computer on the bridge. That's how she determined what the plotters were up to."

"Right." Kyle tried to recall everything he'd learned or surmised about Krulchukor computing. What he

called Swelk's computer was more-it was also a communications device. All such computers on the Consensus were wirelessly networked. The Krulchukor magnetic sense was indifferent to radio frequencies, just as human eyes were indifferent to ultraviolet light. And with inner and outer airlocks doors open, the s.h.i.+p's wireless network must now extend onto the airfield. They were near enough for the device hidden on the bridge to network with the unit Swelk had dropped-a unit still set to translate to English.

"Before I am done, you and your disgusting freaks will experience death on a scale beyond your wildest imaginings."

"Congratulations, by the way,"

Swelk felt the captain's scrutiny. She was covered with burns, oozing fluids from countless sc.r.a.pes and burns. "For what?"

"For a successful escape. For surviving this long." Grelben seemed indifferent to the state of the alarm panel, where lights were increasingly switching from crisis purple to an even more ominous Off. Panels and consoles around the bridge sprayed sparks. He coughed, choked by smoke, fire suppressant, and unknowable fumes. "For the cleverness of your bilat friends."

"System integrity at risk. Redundant equipment failures. Safety shutdown of reactor in three-cubed seconds." The ceiling speakers crackled and hissed."I could override the shutdown. It would turn this side of the continent into a large hole.""No! Do not do that. You must not do that!""Why not?" Grelben whistled in amus.e.m.e.nt at her. "This s.h.i.+p was everything to me. Look at it now."

"The humans should not suffer for what I have done. I brought us here." Her thoughts raced, even as she felt her body succ.u.mbing to the heat and toxic gases and injuries. "If you want someone to blame, it should be me." She had been so proud of herself for spotting Earth's broadcasts. She had done everything in her power to convince him to bring the Consensus here. That Grelben had agreed for his own dishonorable reasons did not mitigate her responsibility. The depth of her presumption stunned her. How arrogant it had been to undertake a personal exploration of Earth rather than report her findings to the authorities on Krulchuk. Pride blinds the eyes, her old nurse liked to say. Swelk's pride had caused all this.

"Safety shutdown of reactor in two three-squared seconds."

"I blame you. You do not need to doubt that." A rumble deep in the s.h.i.+p made his words hard to hear. "What say you? Would you like to go out with a bang?""Captain, please let the reactor shut down safely." Her hearts pounded in fear, in guilt, in dismay. The ma.s.s murder Grelben envisioned was, like Rualf's stage-managed war, almost too large to grasp. One way or another, she knew she was dying, and another extinction also clutched at her. "Let the crew escape. I lived here-all it takes is standard bioconverters. They can live here, too. You can live here."

"Safety shutdown of reactor in three-squared seconds."

"A captain without his s.h.i.+p? I do not think so." He clenched all the digits of an extremity in violent negation. "Nor will, I think, sane Krulirim follow your example."

She had to keep him talking. A few more seconds, and the shutdown would be complete. Amid so many

crashed systems, the reactor could not possibly be reactivated, to become once more a threat. "Let that . . ." A wave of smoke erupted onto the bridge, gagging her. She hacked and coughed, unable to speak. Would she fail, in the end, simply from an inability to get out the words? With a violent rasp, she spit out the pitiful remainder of her argument. " . . . be their decision."

"Safety shutdown of reactor in three seconds . . . two . . . one."

"Get out of here," coughed Grelben.

"Reactor shut down. Plasma has been vented."

* * * Swelk groped through smoke-obscured corridors as fire crackled within the walls. Had her feeble words in the end swayed the captain? Whatever the reason for his forbearance, she was grateful. But she could not forget his taunt: Nor will, I think, sane Krulirim follow your example.

Could she not avoid the guilt of the whole crew's death? Revenge of the Subconscious flashed into her mind. Was she not the monster? She lived apart from her people-of necessity, she always told herself, but was that entirely true? Did she relish her uniqueness? There was no denying that her personal actions had brought a s.h.i.+pload of her kind here. Brought them to a world of bilats, who-however justifiably-were now slaughtering the Krulirim. She had to convince the s.h.i.+p's survivors to escape with her.

Swelk turned from her path toward the zoo hold to save her people.

* * * Grelben tripped and fell over a body in the almost impenetrable smoke, the impact knocking the wind from him. Inhaling reflexively, his lungs filled with noxious fumes. He retched repeatedly crawling through the murk for an emergency respirator.

Limbs weak and shaking, he regained a secure position on his command seat. He removed the breather from his mouth. "Status comm." His rasping voice was no longer understandable. "Status . . . comm," he repeated with exaggerated enunciation. The hologram that formed was too attenuated by smoke to be read. "Flat . . . screen . . . mode." He leaned toward the display, bending a sensor stalk until it almost touched the flat surface. Comm remained, in theory, operational. He could send a message with any antenna he did not mind losing in seconds to the flames gripping the hull. "Command . . . file . . . 'Clean . . . Slate.' "

Sucking oxygen again from the respirator, he recalled with amus.e.m.e.nt Swelk scuttling to what she considered safety. The mutant believed she had dissuaded him. Well, in a way, she had. She had convinced him that the quick death of a fusion explosion, for her and those who had abetted her, was too kind. So there had been no need to keep the reactor hot while he finished his other business. "File . . . open." A deep breath from the respirator. "Send . . . file."

"Help me up." Kyle's unaided attempts at verticality were feeble. "Hurry."

Blake grabbed his outstretched arm and tugged. "You should be seeing a doctor. From our minimal acquaintance, though, I sense you're not big on taking advice."

Kyle ignored him. "Dar, help me out to the s.h.i.+p."

"Sergeant," bellowed Blake. He waved to a woman in a Humvee. "Drive my friends."

Darlene helped him into the low-slung truck, and seconds later, out again. They joined the soldiers who

surrounded the wreckage, and the fire crews who had contained the blaze. They made no attempt to douse the s.h.i.+p itself. Kyle could not find fault with their decision not to endanger whatever firefighting mechanisms were built into the vessel. "This is too reminiscent of the night I met Swelk. Her death in the flames of the very s.h.i.+p she had successfully escaped . . . it's so awful. I can't help but picture Rualf laughing mockingly."

"Convincing the captain to let the reactor shut down . . . she saved our lives, the lives of untold millions.

She really is a hero."

"I know."

He could no more stand still here, baking in the intense heat of the fire, than he'd been able to sit and watch from across the concrete ap.r.o.n. He started limping around the s.h.i.+p; Darlene followed in silence.

There was a second open airlock. Through heat s.h.i.+mmers and smoke he saw motion within. Survivors?