Authors: Brian Stableford
I felt very numb, as though I was floating. I was as
high as a kite on some kind of pain-killer. That was due to the life-support
system on my back, which was still hooked into my flesh. It had fed me enough
anaesthetic to knock me out, and now it was letting me down again, as gently as
it could.
I moved the hand that was clutching my abdomen,
touching the fingertips very gently to the wound where the needles had gone in.
There was a rough edge, but it was only the lacerated plastic of the suit. The
entry wound had already scarred over. Whatever the Nine had done to me had
given my powers of self-repair a considerable boost. I tried to sit up, and
immediately regretted it. It wasn't exactly pain, but it was a dreadful
sensation of nausea. The needles were still inside me, and the damage they'd
done was going to take a good deal more than half an hour to make good.
I lay back against the pillar, wondering whether it
could possibly do me any good to be alive. I looked from side to side, hoping
to see something reassuring. My headlight was still working, but its feeble
beam showed me nothing but dust and wreckage—including a skeleton which must
have been sprawling in much the same position as myself, against another
pillar. When I tried to turn my head, though, I realised that there was another
light-source not too far away. At first
I
thought that it must be Susarma Lear's helmet-lamp, but it was actually an open
doorway in a wall some thirty metres away. I couldn't see inside from where I
was lying, but I could hear 673-Nisreen's voice over the radio link, and I had
to bite my tongue to stop myself exclaiming in surprise.
I tried to sit up, and succeeded. It wasn't
comfortable, but I had a terrible sense of urgency. I couldn't quite think why,
but I had the idea that I was in a hurry. I came to my knees, and then I
managed, with some difficulty, to stand up.
I looked around, but the needier I'd been carrying had
gone.
Myrlin—the thing that was using Myrlin's body—had
taken it away.
From my new position I could see a pair of boots,
attached to a body that was hidden by one of the pillars. They had to be
Susarma Lear's. There wasn't the least sign of movement—if her powers of
self-repair had managed to preserve her life they'd obviously had more work to
do than mine.
I remembered that Susarma had had a crash-gun. Myrlin
had shot her first, then come after me. He had disarmed me, but perhaps he
hadn't gone back afterwards to disarm Susarma.
I wasn't sure that I could walk, but the low gravity
gave me hope. Hyped up as I was, I didn't seem to weigh anything at all. When
I took a step I thought I could feel the needles ripping my intestines, but it
might have been my imagination. I clenched my teeth hard, determined not to
give myself away by groaning.
I don't know how many steps I took to reach Susarma's
body, but I got there as quickly as I could, and knelt down beside her.
The crash-gun was still in her hand.
I could see her face through the helmet. It was very
pale and drawn, but her brave blue eyes were shut and she appeared to be
sleeping peacefully. I knew that she wouldn't be feeling any pain, whether she
was dead or not. I looked at the entry wound where the needles had hit her. She
hadn't taken any more needles than I had, but she'd taken them higher up,
around the lowest ribs. No matter how well the Isthomi had rebuilt her, she
couldn't recover if her lungs had been reduced to tatters—but when I put my
hand to her breast, I thought that I could feel a faint heartbeat.
I didn't dare wait until I was sure—I was in a hurry.
I prised the gun out of her hand. Her fingers weren't rigid with
rigor mortis
, but it seemed as if she opposed me,
very feebly. The reflex gave me further reason to think—at least to hope—that
she was still alive, and that the ingenuity of the life-support system was
equal to the task of preserving her strengthened flesh.
I checked the magazine, and found that the gun had
only two bullets left. There were several spare magazines in her belt and I
took two out—I didn't really think that I'd get a chance to reload if seven
shots weren't enough, but I figured that I might as well have it as not.
I stood up, feeling my intestines lurch as I did so,
wondering whether the superhumanity treatment the Isthomi had given me was
really up to coping with aggravated peritonitis. I switched off my headlight.
I moved as carefully and as quietly as I could towards
the open door. I made sure that I couldn't be seen from within the room, though
they weren't likely to be able to see much looking out from a brightly-lit room
into the darkness. From a distance I took a long discreet look to see where everyone
was. Pseudo-Myrlin was away to the left, Finn to the right. 673-Nisreen was
between them. Pseudo-Tulyar
would
be the most difficult one—he was sitting down again.
Again?
I shook my head to clear the strange sensation of
deja vu
which had come over me. I felt dizzy, as
though there were something I ought to remember, but there was no time to worry
about it.
I paused when I got into position beside the door,
leaning against the wall to gain what support I could while I gathered my
strength. I looked back the way I had come, but it was too dark to see
Susarma's body. I was as ready as I would ever be. Mentally, I rehearsed the
shots that I would have to fire, and prayed fervently that I could aim the
crash-gun effectively. It was a kind of weapon I'd never handled before.
My calculations weren't made any easier by the fact
that I couldn't tell how many shots I'd have to fire. Whatever was in control
of Myrlin's body might not have recaptured all his skills, but had been
effective enough to take Susarma Lear by surprise and shoot her down. Myrlin's
body was just as resistant to damage as mine, and wasn't full of needles. It
wasn't going to be easy to put him away, even with a full clip. And how many
shots would I need thereafter? One for Tulyar, to be sure—but what about Finn?
Had he come sufficiently to his senses to realise that Tulyar was no friend of
his? Might there be just enough humanity left in his befuddled brain to make
him see that I was on his side?
I couldn't spend too long wondering. Somehow, I knew
that there was no time to spare.
I slid around the edge of the doorspace, keeping my
back firmly against the wall—I knew that I'd need every bit of support I could
get, given that the gun would have a much more powerful recoil than a needier.
I was levelling the weapon as I moved, supporting my right arm with my left, as
I'd seen Susarma do. Pseudo-Myrlin and Finn no longer had their guns in their
hands, but they were far from relaxed, and when Finn saw me appear from
nowhere and his eyes widened in horror the giant was quick to go for the
needier which he had laid down near to hand.
I fired at the invader who was wearing the body of my
friend, but couldn't help wincing as I did so. It wasn't a perfect shot but he
was a very big target, and the bullet ripped into him just below the right
collar-bone. He wasn't braced the way I was and the bullet hurled him
backwards, sending him crashing into the console behind him. I wanted to fire
at him again, to make sure that he stayed down, but I could see from the corner
of my eye that my optimistic hopes regarding John Finn's essential humanity
were not to be fulfilled. His hatred for me had corrupted his reflexes irredeemably,
and he was already going for his gun with murderous intent.
I swiveled instantly and fired at him.
I saw the terrified expression on his face as he saw
me turning towards him. He had already plucked his needier from his belt, but
as I shot him, a convulsive jerk of his hand sent his shots straight upwards
into the ceiling.
My bullet hit him in the head, and he went down as if
he'd been switched off. Blood and brains filled up the space inside his helmet,
and I knew that he wouldn't be back, no matter how much work the Isthomi had
done on his body.
I hadn't intended to kill him, and if I'd had the
option, I really would have knocked him down in such a way that he could get up
again when it was all over, but I didn't have the choice.
I also didn't have a choice about what to do next,
because pseudo-Myrlin was already coming back to his feet again. The bigger
they are the harder they fall, but in low gee they can bounce back with
astonishing alacrity. He was braced now as well as I was, and he was bringing
the needier up to fire. I tried to zero in on the centre of his chest again,
and blasted away. It would have done far more good to blow his head off the way
I'd blown Finn's, but that had been a freak shot and I knew better than to try
for a repeat. I had to hit the giant again before he cut me in half with the
needier, and if I had to hit him four more times to keep him down then that was
what I had to do.
Pseudo-Tulyar should have been out of it for a few
more seconds, but he wasn't. His chair didn't swivel but he had turned in it
with unexpected agility, and was covered by its broad back. He must have had a
gun very close to hand because it was in his fist now and he was already
aiming it— but he didn't have a chance to fire because 673-Nisreen, the aging
man of science, brought down upon his wrist the hard cast which was protecting
his own broken arm. Pseudo-Tulyar dropped the gun, and Nisreen grabbed him,
wrenching his arm downwards, using the back of the chair as a fulcrum.
Pseudo-Tulyar somersaulted lazily over the back of the chair.
I had already fired a second shot at pseudo-Myrlin,
who took it square in the chest. Maybe it was too square, because it seemed to
have no effect at all. He couldn't be thrown back again and there wasn't enough
power to stop him even in a great big bullet like that.
He fired, but the needles went wild, splashing into
the wall beside me. If he'd really been Myrlin he would never have missed, but
he was a biocopy of some alien software, locked in an utterly unfamiliar body—he
hadn't had as much time as his brother to become accustomed to his flesh, and I
realised how completely we had been taken by surprise when he first shot us
down. I realised that he hadn't fired into my belly in order to hurt me more,
but because he didn't know any better. It had been a mistake, and now he was
paying for it.
I fired again, and again, and again.
I didn't miss once. The third bullet opened up his
great big chest, sending splinters of rib deep into his vital organs. The
fourth and fifth must have turned his heart and lungs to pulp.
Three or four more needles ricocheted from the floor,
and one of them grazed the boot of my suit, but I was still standing, still
able to fire.
673-Nisreen was down in a heap with the pseudo-Tetron
on top of him. There was no way I could get a clear shot, and I had no option
but to pause.
I coughed, feeling a gout of blood rising from my
belly into my mouth, but I knew that I had to remain standing. Whatever else I
did before I died—and there was
something
I
had to do—I had to destroy the alien that had made use of 994-Tulyar's body to
breach the defences of the starshell. Whatever mischief he was trying to work,
he had been mere moments from completing it, and it wouldn't be enough to hurt
him. He had to be finished.
I watched, impatiently, while he got his arms inside
the futile grip which 673-Nisreen was trying to secure, and thrust outwards
both ways. The bioscientist's grip was broken, and Tulyar threw him off. While
Nisreen tumbled through the air in grotesque slow motion pseudo-Tulyar groped
in desperation for the needier that he had dropped.
But in throwing Nisreen aside he'd signed his own
death-warrant. I had a clear shot now, and I fired.
For the first time, I missed.
I was supposed to be the low-gee expert, the man from
Achilles, but I fired the last bullet before I had quite brought my hand to a
standstill, and I wasn't properly braced against the kick of the gun.
I felt a surge of nausea, but I couldn't even pause to
swallow the blood that was in my mouth. I coughed again, spraying tiny flecks
of red all over the hood, but hurled myself forward anyhow, knowing that I had
to hit him before he could fire the needler.
I had my arms out ahead of me, and it was the gun I
was holding which slammed into his helmet, but now he was the one who was
braced and I was the featherweight. When he thrust out at me with his arms I
began to do the same slow somersault as Nisreen. I went all the way over, and
by the time I was facing him again I was staring straight down the barrel of
his gun, looking failure and death in the face.
But when the needles came, they missed me again. The
zombie had fired just a fraction too late, and the convulsion which sent the
shots wide was caused by the impact of a stream of needles which passed through
his right eye and cheek, ploughing into the brain and destroying whatever
strange entity it was that had taken possession when 994-Tulyar's own real self
had given up the ghost.
673-Nisreen was holding John Finn's gun. It was he who
had fired. Finn was lying dead at his feet, and when Nisreen dropped his eyes
to avoid looking at 994-Tulyar's corpse he looked straight at the bloody mess
inside Finn's helmet. Tetrax can't turn pale, but Nisreen did the best he
could, and I saw him shudder convulsively.