The City Who Fought Part 32

Well, he takes as many as the rest of us do, Channa thought. Quite the little commander all the same. Wry amus.e.m.e.nt colored her exhaustion.

"Security monitor's locked," Joat said. "Now, your bit"

Seld went to the electronics access panel and began fiddling with its innards. Then he inserted the hedron he had prepared. The resulting picture would be distorted in the way the security computers had been since the pirate worm program went in. But they would distort the images of Joat and Seld in selective ways. Making them appear taller, much darker...

Joat went in die opposite direction, placing herself at the end of the corridor in the lookout's position.

When he had finished he joined her and tapped her shoulder. "Time," he whispered. *Just a sec." She opened her pack and withdrew a monocrystal filament dispenser. The thread was a molecule in diameter but incredibly strong. Dangerous to handle, too. Thinner than the thinnest knife-blade could ever be.

"What are you gonna do with that?" he asked puzzled. "I thought you were planting something."

"Stick around and you'll see," she said, waggling her eyebrows.

She knelt beside the wall and attached an end of the beryllium monocrystal filament to the corridor panel at about knee height Using the tiny laser that was part of the dispenser, the end was soldered into place, leaving a slight stickiness when she touched the wall. She reeled out the invisible fiber and tacked the other end to the opposite wall, keeping a careful mental image of where it was.

Seld turned pale. "You can't... you know what that stuff does!"

"Sure do," she said smugly. "Ol1 Jack-of-All-Trades is gonna give new meaning to 'cut off at the knees.' * "You can't," he said, and grabbed her arm. "They're b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but they're... they're sentients. You can't be maiming them like that." His voice had taken on a tinge of his father's accent again, but he was shaking with tension. Drops of sweat broke out at the edge of his reddish-brown hair. "It's evil! What are you thinking about?"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her arm from his grip. "I'm thinking about what they did. Tortured people. What they did to Patsy, and your friend Juke. I'm thinking about payback."

He licked his lips. "Not like this, I won't have anything to do with it Couldn't you just... kill them clean? C'mon,Joat?"

She pushed him back with her shoulder and tacked another line through at about waist height for a taD adult "Sim says," she went on, drawing three more lines about s.h.i.+n-height, "that cutting the enemy up is better than killin' 'em. Shakes them up more, and they gotta take care of them."

"If we do stuff like this, how are we different from them?"

She turned on him, snarling. '"Cause we live here and we're not doing this forfunl Or to make a nardy credit offit!"

Seld sat down abruptly against the corridor wall.

"Seld?" she said, her f.a.ge smoothing out abruptly and her voice changing. "Seld, you okay? You need your meds?"

"I'm okay. I just. .. I just don't like you as much when you're like this, Joat. And I really like you. You know?"

Sometimes I don't like me much, Joat thought. She turned away and blew out her lips in exasperation. "Don't go buckawbuckaw on me now, Seld, 'cause it's gonna get worse around here before it gets better. If it gets better." Everything always gets worse.

He raised his head from his knees. "If I'm going to die soon I want to die clean," he said. "Gimme your V-pills."

"Why?"

"Lost mine."

"Okay." They were supposed to take the pill if they came into contact with a Kolnari. Joat didn't intend to, or to live if she did. Seld pocketed the pills and stalked off toward his own escape route.

She pursed her lips and tacked a new line to the wall at the opening of the connecting corridor, at what she estimated as head-height for a Kolnari.

Then she ducked under it by a wide margin, tip-toed back toward the first line. She stopped well short of it and listened.

Come on, you gruntfudders, she thought. Rzrdling move.

They should be amazed that it was taking the first patrol so long to respond. She went to stand by the sabotaged panel and listened, hearing only the pounding of her own heart, which felt as if it wanted to tear free ofher thin chest. Then at last, her quick ears caught the sound of movement. She counted to five and began to retreat toward the second line. She entered the corridor just as she heard a shouted "Halt!" in KolnarL Perfect, she thought, all they saw was the coveraW They hadn't said halt, sc.u.mvermin, either.

A couple of shots were fired; light weapons, needles spanging off metal. The squad leader barked an order for cease fire and pursuit. Feet tapped the mesh covering of the corridor, in the distinctive long strides of the pirates.

Screams rang down the corridor, clanging and echoing in the dose s.p.a.ce. Joat leaned forward from where she crouched and looked out around the corner. There was a malicious grin on her face, but it died at what she saw. Two of the Kolnari soldiers lay on the floor in a small pond of blood, hanging over the ultrastrong invisible wire that had sawn through their legs and opened them up from navel to backbone like a b.u.t.terflied shrimp. As she watched, a body fell to the ground in two pieces, and there was so much, so much blood and guts and all the colors, and a pink-purple lung...

One Kolnari trooper reached toward her severed legs and cut her hand in half to the wrist. Two fingers flopped uselessly as she clutched her arm and screamed and screamed, not in pain or fear but sheer terror of the invisible something that had killed her.

"Oh, multi grudly," Joat whispered to herself. The sound of the words against what she saw was so out of place that she felt hysterical giggles bubbling up. Something warned her that that sort of giggling would be very difficult to stop once it started, so she backed away. Her eyes were huge saucers in her thin pale face.

At the other end of Joat's corridor was one of Simeon's hidden elevators. She tossed the wire spool out into the corridor before she entered it. Behind her there were shouts: the next enemy squad. From the ringing sounds, they tested to find the wires with the barrels of their weapons. There was a double thud as one unwary Kolnari turned too iast into the corridor and decapitated himself on the final trap.

Moving briskly, Joat exited the elevator three levels up and entered an access corridor meant for electrical repairs. She transferred tcone of the small ventilation shafts and dragged herself quickly and efficiently to a larger open area where an array of the shafts met. She was safe here: it was one of her bases, with a pallet and some ration boxes as well as tools pilfered from Engineering, if you could call it pilfering when they handed them to you willingly. They were calling Joat the "Spirit of SSS-900-C," or Simeon's Gremlin.

Then she was violendy sick to her stomach. Servos arrived, clicking and cheeping to themselves, and cleaned up the mess.

Joat lay down, cradling her face on her arms, and wept bitterly. Long wracking sobs, like nothing she could remember.

'Joat... honey, have you been hurt?" Simeon's voice was soft and warm, like a vaguely remembered something that once held her.

She lifted a face flushed with weeping, but her lips were white.

"I'm not as tough as I thought," she said through her sobs. "I didn't think ... s.h.i.+t, no! I've gotta heart like a rock. That's me, Joat the killer! Did you hear me snancing Seld for a wuss?" A cough racked her, and she wiped her eyes on the back of her hands. "He'll hate me! I hate myself! It was so -" And she threw herself down and bit the mattress. An eerie crooning wail echoed through the corridor.

"Shhh, it's all right, it's all right."

"I wanna go home!"

"Joat. Joat, honey. I'm with you. You are home. You'll always have a home with me. / don't hate you, Joat. You're not bad, honey. But sometimes things get through to the good part of you that doesn't like the tough part of you, and that's what just happened."

The servos rolled forward and tucked a blanket around her. Simeon began to croon, directing it at her ears where she hugged the blanket about her head and only tufts of hair escaped.

"IwantCharma"

I can't hold her, Simeon thought But I can smg....

"Do you call me liar to my face, Aragiz?" Belazir said.

"My people were killed," Aragiz t'Varak replied. "Security recorded Kolnari setting the trap, perhaps thinking to throw the blame on sc.u.mvermin. I knew sc.u.mvermin could not-"

"Do you give me the lie, t'Varak?"

The other captain stopped, torn between unwillingness to retract and inability to attack. Belazir was under no such constraints.

"Did it never occur to you, oh so straightforward cousin, that it might be sc.u.mvermin posing as Clan? That they are as capable of playing on our divisions as we are on theirs?"

"You call me dupe of sc.u.mvermin?"

"I say that you bare me, Lord Captain Aragiz t'Varak. You bore me beyond words, beyond bearing. Your existence makes die universe a place of tedium beyond belief!"

Aragiz's face relaxed, into a soft, welcoming smile. "When?"

"When Lord Captain Pol t'Veng's judgement is fulfilled. To the fist" Adeath-duel in die old manner, with spiked steel gloves.

"And now," Belazir went on, "get your household and all else to your s.h.i.+p." Quick suspicion marked the other captain's face. "Yes, 1 know you were ma.s.sing your groundfighters. There is no time for feud here, t'^rak. Believe me." The screen blanked. Serig took a step forward, an eyebrow raised. , "Lord, he is the dolt you named rum. There is nothing wrong with his reflexes, though."

"As it may be," Belazir said. "I spoke the truth. It drives me to fury to have to call that one cousin, it truly does." He shook his head. Today, we triumph, Serig. By running, yes: but triumph nonetheless. So, we -"

The dockside guards' chimes rang through the bridge. "Great Lord, we have a sc.u.mvermin female, claiming to have information for you."

Serig chuckled. There had been a fair number of sc.u.mvermin females coming to the dock and asking for Belazir. Some few he had taken himself, and pa.s.sed the others on to Serig or the crew.

"No, wait," Belazir said. "Information of what?"

"A conspiracy, involving the sc.u.mvermin leadersthat-were and die prey-s.h.i.+p, lord."

"Send her up." Belazir looked at Serig and shrugged. "Why not?"

Waiting was swift. "I would speak with you alone, Master," the woman said, looking meaningfully at Serig.

"I am generous to women," Belazir declared. Quite true, or she would never have reached him. "So generous I did not hear you, sc.u.mvermin."

She blinked and swallowed hard, looking from one to the other.

"Why have you come?"

"The... they held me prisoner, Master and Gggg -" Even then, she could not quite bring herself to utter the blasphemy. Then Belazir looked up at her, and she felt herself huddle down behind the barrier of her skull, knowing it was not enough. So a sicatooth looked at a lamb. "- G.o.d," she completed, uncertain if it was the obscene honorific they demanded or a prayer, "I... I have information." She sfemmered, put a hand to her face. / escaped, she thought They must be really conspiring against her - against Amos, as well. Holding her from him. She whimpered slightly. She could remember his words of love, the promises - and nightmares of rejection, of failure. The bra.s.s-colored eyes were waiting.

"I am Rachel bint Damscus. I am from Bethel. I was on the s.h.i.+p that you were chasing. Forty of us survived the journey and took refuge on this station."

Neither of the Kolnari moved or spoke.

"So ... you are from Bethel?" Belazir leaned his head on his fist. One finger caressed his lower lip. "Turn your head. Stand. Bend. Sit once more."

Belazir turned to Serig. "Possible," he said meditatively. "Similar sc.u.mvermin race, but there are many varieties here."

"Unlikely, lord."

Belazir nodded. And in any case academic. They were nearly ready to go. If they have deceived us, what matter'? The memory of his slap in the face of the Bride's joss came back to him. Perhaps the old customs had some real strength after all....

She stared at him. There was something odd about her eyes, Belazir decided. Her lips trembled, and her fingers, but not in terror; he could always identify that. Some nerve disorder, perhaps? He leaned forward and snuffed. Not a healthy scent.

"Yes." She nodded once, sharply. "Master and G.o.d."

"Why do you tell me this? Surely you know that it is dangerous?"

The woman began to tremble with rage, and tears filled her eyes.

"She ... that black-haired, black-hearted wh.o.r.e seduced my betrothed! She promised him power! But she lied. He plays the fool for her, does what she tells him, sleeps in her bed ..." Her voice broke and she stopped, swallowed a few times before she could speak again. "Hie one you have been told is Simeon-Amos is truly Amos, the leader who brought us here from Bethel. The real Simeon is a sh.e.l.lperson, a thing they call a brain, and he is still running this station."

"A... sh.e.l.lperson?" Belazir t'Marid dosed his eyes for a moment "Ah! We have heard, but never seen."

Serig leaned down to him. "Lord, a sort of protein computer, no? But our worm subverted their system and holds it in our fist Would we not have known?"

"It would explain anomalies," Belazir said, chasing the elements that made him believe the impossible "And - ah! I am as great a fool as Aragiz t'Varak!"

"Surely not, lord," Serig said, surprised. "Not on your worst day. Not on my worst day. Not on the worst day of this sc.u.mvermin womb here."

"I was about to dismiss this, time being short Dismiss potentially the richest single piece of loot on the station!"

"A sh.e.l.lperson is so much?"

"A strategic a.s.set," Belazir said. "Come, we will look into this. It is time, in any case."

He turned his eyes back to the sc.u.mvermin. From all he could see, she was manic-depressive, swinging from healthy, normal terror to an exalted state where she had complete confidence in his interest, in his support As if he were a player in her play...

"Mad," he said. "Yet... My vanity, perhaps, but little Channahap plays the war game far too well. An encysted brain, tied to great computers and their data banks, though?" He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at Rachel.

"I can only tell you what I have heard," the woman said, babbling in her desire to be believed. "I have been ir told that they are people who have been put into a casing as infants and that they then become like a computer." She wrung her hands and looked desperately from one to the other. "I'm telling you the truth. They are plotting against you. Master and G.o.d!"

Belazir smiled iipoflte agreement "Of course they are." On that, at least, they were agreed. He rose. "Come, we will go and talk to them." He turned to Serig. "Have Baila tell Channahap that I will see her in her office. Tell her to have Simeon-Amos there as well."

Simeon spoke, interrupting Channa at her work station. "Channa, Belazir t'b.a.s.t.a.r.d is heading this way with Rachel in tow. I don't know what's up, but he's looking both grim and pleased."

Before Channa could speak, the comm chimed and Baila's face appeared.

"Channahap," she said. "The Lord Captain t'Marid is on his way to your office. You will await him there. He commands the presence of Simeon-Amos. Obey." The screen went dark.

"s.h.i.+t" Channa said, and tapped her fingers thoughtfully. "You're right, Simeon, this does not look good. I am so sick of that girl. She's driving me... crazy. Simeon?"

"You're right on the b.u.t.ton about her state of mind, Channa. Our Rachel's crazy, not just going crazy but absolutely nuts, gonzo, a sandwich shy of a picnic, packin' a short seabag..."

"Sim!"

"Right, I'll have Chaundra draw up a case history about some kind of dementia. You brief Simeon-Amos, 111 spread the word."

"You got it. Simeon-Amos," she said over the intercom, "get in here."

"And Channa?"

"Yes?"

"I think this is it. The battle platform just started severing its stationside power leads. We've got a real opportunity to hurt them hard if we can get Belazir out of comm with his people. It could make the difference."

Channa nodded. She had bedn prepared to try an a.s.sa.s.sination on the Bride, but that, at best, was unlikely. Fear was remote: no time for it "Simeon-Amos," she began, when he entered the lounge. "Belazir's coming, with Rachel." His face froze. "Here's what we're going to do - no time for an argument-"

The crates made gentle plopping noises as they slid out of the meter-deep green water of the algae pools and stood dripping on the slotted metal of the walkways. s.h.i.+ps had a closed system of tubing and enclosed tanks, but this arrangement - open metal rectangles stacked like trays - was more efficient for a station. The environment systems workers moved quickly, without wasted effort or much talking. This had not been a cheerful section since their chief returned to them, but there was a stolid satisfection as the vac-covers were peeled back and the weapons went from hand to hand among the hundred or so technicians, office workers, and laborers.