Death of a Starship (20 page)

Surely the belters of Shorty’s
Surprise would take care of them.

He promised himself they would. On
his word.

Please, God.

‡

Golliwog: Halfsummer Solar Space,
The Necklace, Shorty’s Surprise

Thirty-two minutes and seventeen
point four four zero one seconds after the priest had departed, the
hatch cycled open. Golliwog held himself in check in a far corner
of the storeroom. His legs were folded, ready to spring, and he had
his dead left arm bound to his aching side, out of harm’s way. He
would not attack without reason or orders, even if he had to give
himself the reasons and the orders.

That was a novel thought. He stored
it with the other tokens of his rebellion as someone tossed a heavy
package through the hatch then cycled it shut again.

Bomb!

Golliwog hurled himself across the
space. If there was timer, he might be able to stop it. If not, he
could shield Yee and the angel from the blast.

He splayed himself to land over the
target, forgetting his lashed arm. Off point, Golliwog wound up
taking weight on his left shoulder and smacking into package. It
was hard, unyielding, painful against his already distressed ribs
and gut. It was not, however, explosive.

Yet.

He curled around it, his back to
Yee and the package in the curve of his body. Steadying it with one
foot, he touched it lightly with his right hand. Vacuum rated
utility cloth, folded and secured with a molecular clamp. No code
on the clamp, just a release button.

Another arming option, of course.
Press the release button, go boom. But he wouldn’t get at any
interior wiring any other way. He clenched his bowels and
pressed.

The cloth package popped open.
Tools, three smaller bags with carry straps. No bomb. Or if it was
a bomb, it was a rather baroque approach to bomb-making.

Inventory, Golliwog told
himself.

One: Bladed hand tool he didn’t
recognize, with a chemical dispenser built in and a reservoir
clipped to the butt end. Cutter for the angel’s web restraints,
perhaps? Certainly a decent weapon in a fight.

Two: Field-grade surgical
spidersilk applicator. Used for wound closure. Someone expected him
to get hurt.

Three: A battered civilian-grade
codelock key, for access to equipment with manual lockdowns. In
this context, either a station segment or a boat outside in the
deep ark. Golliwog had a good idea which boat that might be. And
that was a positive development, because it wasn’t possible to fit
both Yee and the angel into the little black boat he and Yee had
arrived in.

Four: A small flechette pistol.
Almost no butt. Less accurate but much easier to carry unnoticed.
He spared it a closer glance. Bioplastics. Depending on the
materials used to make the pressurized valvework and control
circuits, this might even walk through a passive security scan
without setting off alarms. Dangerous, in more ways than the
obvious.

Two of the smaller bags turned out
to be life bubbles – inflatable pods designed to allow
low-competence or unrated users to survive in vacuum. These were
extremely low-end, toys really, with twenty-minute safety ratings
and ten-minute margins beyond that.

Not at all to his surprise, the
last bag contained a disposable skinsuit with a baggie-style
helmet. About the same utility value as the life bubbles, except
for the zero value of breathing vacuum as an
alternative.

Someone wanted him to leave,
and to tow his two wounded with him. Golliwog would have bet his
good arm that the codelock key gave him access to
Jenny’s Little Pearl
. His
unknown benefactors wanted him off Shorty’s
Surprise.

Another bet Golliwog would make was
that his time window was critically short.

He wondered briefly about the
priest. They had taken Chor Episcopos Menard away, just when
Golliwog thought he might have found...what? Interest? Attention?
Focus from a human being who was neither motivated by fear nor by
their role in the command chain. It didn’t matter. He owed Menard
nothing.

The angel was another matter. Made
things had nothing, were nothing. He didn’t know if he was saving
or condemning it, but he would set it free. If it died, it died on
its own terms, not glued to a crate somewhere.

Golliwog worked his way over to the
angel. His guess was right, the cutting tool worked on the
restraint webbing. The blade cut into the semisolid dynamic
polymer, while the chemical slime behind it dissolved the bonds
that otherwise reset instantly. He cut the angel free, not trying
to deal with the web strands clinging to its red armor and
dead-white skin. Those weird, gossamer wings that had hurt him so
badly were gone, folded back to whatever virtual space inside the
angel’s body – or head – from which they had come. He dragged it
into one of the life bubbles. He waited to pop the seals. After
all, it would be beyond stupid to use up the reserves while still
inside the station.

Dr. Yee was next. Golliwog launched
the bagged-up angel on a slow arc toward the hatch, then made his
way to the board where she was still strapped. He wondered how she
would feel if he began cutting into her, to see how she worked,
what she was made of.

But the station medics had been
cutting into her, spraying little repairs into place to hold her
guts together, reinflating her lungs, setting her hips back where
she belonged. What would he achieve?

“
If I take you now,” he told the
unconscious Yee, “we are even. You do not own me any more. Setting
you free, I set myself free.”

Her eyes flickered at his voice.
“Kill it now,” she whispered, though she still didn’t seem to be
conscious.

“
Not yet,” he said. “But soon.
That’s a promise.”

Golliwog used the webbing cutter to
slice through Yee’s straps, then slid her into the other life
bubble. He sliced some tie-downs loose from nearby crates and
lashed the two life bubbles together. After that, he stripped off
his old skinsuit – they had taken the helmet away when they’d
imprisoned him here – and pulled on the disposable unit. Stuffing
the tools into one of the utility bags, he towed his charges to the
hatch and slapped the button.

It slid open. He found himself
completely unsurprised.

‡

Albrecht: Halfsummer Solar Space,
The Necklace, Shorty’s Surprise

They moved fast through the
station, amid the smells and sounds and movements of thousands of
crowded human beings. Albrecht followed Dillon, who had picked up
the largest ballspitter he’d ever seen. The priest struggled along
behind, but kept up. People who saw them coming through the tall,
crowded caves of humanity got out of the way. There were a few
struggles as some kept others from interfering.

“
Coup?” Albrecht panted with the
effort of their rapid flight.

“
Disagreement,” Dillon said
shortly. “Past versus future.”

“
Black Flag.”

A grunt from ahead of
Albrecht.

Then they were in a utility
passageway. Dillon snap spun to orient himself feet forward on
their direction of travel and loosed a burst from the ballspitter.
The high-elasticity projectiles rattled and thumped as they shot
down the passageway, to a startled yelp from ahead, as Dillon
staggered in his flight before recovering his forward
momentum.

Albrecht was starting to feel a
“down” to the right. He grabbed a rung, twisted himself ninety
degrees, and adopted the long, low-gravity lope of a spaceman. They
came to a hatch in what was now the floor without further
opposition.

Dillon turned. “Listen. It’s
point three gees at the bottom of this shaft, about a hundred
meters down. You lose control, it’s going to hurt on impact. Kill
you if you come down wrong.
Don’t screw
up
.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just
keyed the hatch open to an underlit hole with a faint red glow,
like distant fire down below. Dillon dropped in with one hand on a
ladder rail and the other aiming his ballspitter
downward.

Albrecht waved Menard in next.
“I’ll follow, Chor Episcopos.”

“
Bless you, my son. Fall safely.”
Menard, for all that his face showed his nerves, kicked himself
over the hatch lip headfirst like a Marine, reaching for the rail
as he went.

Albrecht glanced up the corridor to
see someone with a flechette rifle watching him. At least they
weren’t shooting. Right now, anything was possible. Worlds turned
on moments like this. He waved maniacally, then followed the priest
headfirst, swallowing his stomach.

The hatch cycled shut behind
them.

‡

He hit bottom hard enough to wish
he hadn’t. Chor Episcopos Menard had gotten out of the way,
thankfully, and was hustling spinward through the girdered shadows
of some ancient equipment bay toward another open hatch, red-lit in
the floor.

“
I believe this is Ser Dillon’s
rock hopper,” Menard said with a glance over his
shoulder.

Albrecht looked around. This space
had been something different once, though he had no idea what. Now
it was filled with groaning masses of metal and carbonmesh chained
against the coreward bulkheads, straining with the force of the
rotation. A third of a gee was enough to send something loose
sailing outward at close to three meters per second per second. He
didn’t want to think about how many tons were hanging over his
head, great blunt Damoclean plowshares. If there was a problem,
they couldn’t just turn off the gravimetrics and shift things
looking for his body.

Something clanged in the distance,
as Dillon bellowed unintelligibly from below.

“
Go,” said Albrecht.

Menard went. Albrecht
followed.

‡

Gravity was wrong inside. They were
being pulled towards what should have been the bow. The crash
couches were set perpendicular to the current normal plane. Dillon
was already strapped into the central seat, his ballspitter racked
above his head. Albrecht noted the barrel was pointing straight at
him and the hatch behind.

“
Strap in, now,” said Dillon.
“We’re twenty-four seconds from drop.”

Menard was clambering
awkwardly down into the portside seat, so Albrecht dropped onto
starboard seat. “Where’s the rest of the boat?” This cabin was
smaller than
Pearl
’s bridge, about forty percent of the bulkheads actually
translucent panels which currently showed a crisscross of cables
and girders. They were going to launch into
that
?

“
This is it. Secure for
drop.”

“
Secured,” said Menard.

Albrecht finished clicking his
mechanical restraints in place. “Starboard seat secured.” Looking
around, he saw his hardsuit lashed in just forward of the hatch
he’d tumbled through. Someone had thought ahead. He wondered where
the cash had gotten to, then felt vaguely ashamed of the
thought.

“
Seven... six...” Someone began
banging on the hatch as a hull section slid open in front of them,
showing the glittering fog of Shorty’s Surprise localspace beyond.
“Fuck... you... three... two... one...” Dillon pulled a red toggle
with a strain that had to be spring-locked. There was a very loud
clang, then the apparent gravity essentially reversed, going from
tugging Albrecht forward against his straps to pulling him backward
and slightly up as they tumbled screaming into the bright fog of
active defense nano.

‡

Golliwog: Halfsummer Solar Space,
The Necklace, Shorty’s Surprise

It was a strange exit. He had made
it from the storeroom into the passageways unchallenged. The life
bubbles massed, of course, but they didn’t pull in any particular
direction in the microgravity at Shorty’s core. He’d worked his way
toward the skin, fighting the increasing pull of Yee and the angel
– who were both thankfully light on mass – until he’d run into
another pair of those giant men. The flechette pistol had gutted
them before they realized who he was, but alarms hooted moments
after.

He had to assume the bells tolled
for him.

Someone was herding Golliwog,
though. Some hatches opened at his approach, others stayed
resolutely shut even when he banged on emergency overrides. He’d
found himself in an elevator shaft, a skeletal little car wrapped
around a ten-centimeter cable that glittered of woven diamond
carbonmesh. One of the rockball cables, of course.

He’d taken the hint, sealed all
three life support systems and begun counting minutes. The cage
left a little clanking airlock, the noise of which faded with the
air pressure, lifting him against gravity into the whirling junk
cloud around Shorty’s Surprise. From inside the elevator, the
rockballs and the huge, cluttered central cylinder appeared
absolutely steady, while The Necklace beyond them moved quickly
enough to catch his eye. Scanning the area, Golliwog watched
another hatch further around the sidewall arc of the central core
open.