Song of Scarabaeus (17 page)

“Did they leave anything for me?” Edie asked dryly.

“You're better off unarmed,” Haller said. “If any of these lags has a humane thought left in his head, he'll be less likely to shoot an unarmed girl.”

She wasn't convinced, considering the way serf handlers prided themselves on dehumanizing men. And she didn't want to think about what they might do instead of shooting her.

“We're now in the port emergency shaft, both of us,”
Haller continued. “I sent the engineers into the starboard shaft in case the lags double back.”

“And where the hell is Kristos?” Zeke called from somewhere in the background.

“Uh, haven't seen him.” Edie wondered if Kristos would have his pay docked for blatant disobedience. But right now they had other things to worry about.

“Listen,” Haller said, “we've got nothing but spurs. Can't risk provoking a gunfight anywhere near the hull with those rifles. We're sitting tight until you get those sensors back online, teckie. They don't have boundary chips so they might head for the skiffs—even the lifepods if they have outside help coming. I need to know where they're going so we can cut them off. Vent them if we have to.”

Shit.
Haller was scared, and that scared Edie. She glanced at Finn as they reached the armory hatch. His expression was hard as he toed aside a dead tom before hauling open the hatch. The lock was a smoldering mess. Half a dozen toms lay scattered on the deck around the hatch, all of them belly-up, inactive.

“You reached the engine room yet?” Haller asked.

“Almost,” she lied. “I'll let you know when sensors are back, sir.”

She signed off and grabbed the spur that Finn handed her off the rack. He strapped a second weapon to his left forearm and hooked on a spare clip.

They jogged back to the ladder well and climbed belowdeck. Forward was the cellblock, still housing the three remaining serfs. The bolt on the outer hatch hung at an odd angle, looking like it had been chewed through.

The aft hatch took them into the control booth of the engine room. A plaz window filled the far wall, overlooking the expansive engine pit. Down each side of the pit ran a raised catwalk, accessed from doors on either side of the control booth. Edie gazed out over the pit. She knew enough about engine teck to recognize the fusion reactor—a series of
four-meter-tall laser rings lined up like skinny donuts, glittering with ice crystals, with the fuel containment chamber running through the center. Behind the fusion reactor, suspended in a web of girders, was the I/M converter mass—a matte-black ball big enough to entirely fill the
Hoi
's gym.

A gentle whirring sound came from the magnetic fields that spun the plasma fuel, piped in from external tanks. For all that intimidating machinery, the room was surprisingly quiet.

While Finn guarded the hatch, Edie sat cross-legged on the deck and pressed her fingers to the dataport on the control desk. Many of the maintenance systems were centralized here, and it was her best bet for eliminating the confusing blips so that the sensors could be trusted. Shutting down the toms' access ports was the logical starting point, so that no more blips could be released. Without instructions, the toms would end up wandering aimlessly once their regular schedules were done, but they were harmless enough in that condition. Next, she coded a sniffer and set it loose throughout the system to tag the existing blips. Then she sent a patcher to chase it. The disharmonious blips were nudged back into place, restoring the melody, note-perfect.

“Can you do anything useful in there?” Finn asked.

“I've destroyed the blips, so the sensors should read right. I'm rebooting now to—”

“That's not what I meant.”

She threw him a look over her shoulder. He was talking about the future, about an escape plan after the mission. “Okay. I've been thinking about it, about how to get into the more secure areas. If I could get access to navigation…”

“Would you know what to do if you had that access?”

Edie shook her head with a grimace. “Enviros, then. If we control their air, we can threaten them. Force them to let us go.”

“The thing about threats is, you'd better be prepared to follow through.” Finn squatted on the floor beside her. His
voice was low, intense. “You'd better have nothing to lose.”

She had something to lose—someone. Given the chance, Haller wouldn't hesitate to counter her threat by threatening Finn's life.

“What else can I do? We have nothing over them.”

“Can you access external comms?”

“To send a message? Where?”

“What about that CIP patrol ship?”

Edie's heart missed a beat and her face flushed with anger. “No. I'm not going back to the Crib.” Back to being a pawn in their game of galactic imperialism.

It disturbed her that, not for the first time, Finn thought he might be better off with the Crib than with rovers. He must have seen the determination in her eyes, heard it in her voice, felt it through the link, because he backed down.

“At least find a way to keep that option available. Jam open your access to comms so we can use it later if we find someone who can help us. Can you do that?”

She nodded, returning to the datastream. Working quickly—she couldn't stall Haller forever, and they were, after all, in real danger from three armed serfs on the loose—she tracked down the external comms and coded a link between it and internal comms. The link would allow her to access an external line even after Haller revoked her security privilege. It wasn't perfect. A leak between security levels wasn't something that would go unnoticed for long, but unless someone was looking for it they'd be unlikely to find it. It might hold until they reached the Fringe.

Just as she finished, the console beeped, its reboot complete. The reboot had cleared any remaining echoes of the damage, and she called up the sensor readings again.

“It's done. Best I can do anyway,” she told Finn.

“Good.”

He stood and pulled her to her feet so she could check the holoviz. She thumbed her comm. “Haller, sensors are up.”

“About bloody time. Where are the serfs?” Haller's panic
was lessened now that he was no longer blind. Without rifles, however, he was still effectively declawed.

Finn examined the holo with her. The sensors picked up the body heat of everyone on the ship and relayed their locations to the holo, along with the commclip ID of those who wore them—herself and Finn in the control booth, Kristos in his quarters, the captain and Cat on the bridge. The three serfs still in captivity showed up as unlabeled splotches in the hold.

“Who's that?” Edie pointed to a glowing shape in a state-room near Kristos's.

“That would be the cook, in her quarters,” Finn said.

She mentally chastised herself for forgetting Gia. “Okay. And these are our four guys in the emergency shafts.” Their heat signatures were indistinct, the ID labels fading in and out because the sensors were on the other side of the bulkhead, not in the shafts.

“You ready to give me my options yet?” came Haller's voice.

“Where are they?” Edie whispered, going over the layout again. The serfs were flesh and blood with beating hearts and body heat—they had to show up. “I don't see them,” she told Haller, and was rewarded with an impatient growl.

“Any chance they're no longer on board?” Finn said.

She checked the security logs on the skiffs. Both were docked and secured, as were all six lifepods, and she reported this to Haller.

“Maybe they're stone cold dead,” Zeke quipped.

“They escaped maybe thirty minutes ago, at most,” Edie said. “If something killed them they'd still be warm.”

“Yeah, but it'd solve all our problems,” he grumbled. He must be feeling particularly peeved about the escape, since the serfs were his responsibility.

“You sure you fixed those blips, teckie?” Haller said. “Maybe a skiff launched and they've left a false log.”

“No, the skiffs are there. I'm sure of it.” Wiping the errors
was a simple patch, and there wasn't a chance she hadn't recognized a deeper problem.

Nevertheless, she heard Haller ordering the engineers to Beta skiff. They could eyeball it from the emergency shaft without exposing themselves in case the serfs were there. She could see from the holo that he and Zeke were going to Alpha skiff. The lifepods were a less likely target for the serfs, as they couldn't get far in them.

Edie checked over the sensor readings again. “Where could they be hiding?”

Finn stared out the plaz window, at the engine. “What's the air temp around the I/M mass?”

“Cold enough to frost up the room, but that shouldn't affect the sensors.”

“Yeah, but it sucks up the heat from the fusion reactor, right? It's a heat sink.” He squinted across the fusion rings to the girders housing the black ball. “So there has to be a hot zone out there somewhere.”

Edie's breath caught as she zoomed in on the sensor readout for the engine room. Finn was right. The sensors showed the rippling colors of heat gradients—below freezing throughout most of the room, colder still where the I/M mass was located, and a river of heat streaming into the I/M mass from the fusion reactor.

She examined the readout for any signs of uneven heat distribution.

“There.” Finn pointed at the holo. Tiny flickers wavered in and out of view near the I/M mass. Three men hiding out in the zone that was invisible to sensors and had a tolerable temperature.

“I'll tell Haller.” She reached for the comm switch on the control desk, wondering how the hell the XO would resolve this. If the rifles were dangerous near the hull, then surely they would be catastrophic in here.

Finn stayed her hand. “He'll kill them. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not.”

Finn looked out again, eyes narrowed. Then he stripped off both spurs and walked to the door at the side of the booth.

“What are you—?”

“Don't call Haller.”

He went out onto the catwalk.

Edie was too stunned to call after him. Through the window she watched Finn walk away, his hands open and empty. One of the serfs came out from his hiding place among the girders, rifle pointed at Finn's chest. Edie wiped sweaty palms against her thighs, her throat constricting.

She needed to calm down. It would help Finn far more if she could squash her emotions, leaving him with a clear head.

From what she could see, the serf was middle-aged and wiry. He was dirty enough to make her wonder if he'd crawled through access tubes to reach the engine room. Perhaps the escapees were unaware that the crew's firepower was so inferior to theirs, and had decided to hide until they could make a run for a skiff.

The serf's hands shook, either from fear or desperation. Edie glanced at the comm switch on the control desk, every instinct telling her to call for help, but Finn had told her not to. She had to trust that he knew what he was doing.

“I'm unarmed,” Finn said, loud enough for her to hear through the window. He stopped twenty meters from the man, his breath misting in the freezing air. Edie could make
out two more serfs hovering in the shadows. “If you're trying to get off the ship, you went the wrong way.”

“They sent you to talk to us?” the serf sneered. “A lag? Or are you one of them now?”

“They don't know you're here yet. I came to help.”

The man's rifle dropped slightly. If there was anyone on the ship he might listen to, Edie hoped it would be a fellow serf.

Finn took a few more steps, stopped again. Now he was too far away for her to hear his words, but the rifle gradually sagged lower and lower, and the other two came out of hiding to listen. They were much younger. If all three attacked Finn, even without weapons, he'd be in trouble. Then again, he'd handled himself well with the eco-rads…

Haller buzzed her comm, startling her.

“The skiffs are docked. I'm adding extra security loops to prevent them being stolen. Engineers are checking the lifepods. Anything to report on your end?”

“No, sir. Still searching.” Her answer came reflexively. Whatever happened out there, it would only be made worse if Haller knew about it.

“Let me know as soon as you've got a trace.”

He signed off, and she took a deep breath. She couldn't stall him forever. Eventually the engineers would return and see for themselves what was going on.

One of the serfs was talking to the other, gesturing wildly, and Edie hoped he was persuading him to listen to Finn, to surrender. But his young friend shook his head and hefted his rifle over his shoulder. He grabbed a second rifle from the older man and started up the catwalk, pushing past Finn. For a terrifying moment Edie thought he was going to walk all the way back to the control booth. But he reached an access panel, kicked it open, and disappeared inside.

Finn glanced up at Edie, then turned back to the two remaining serfs. More words were exchanged—it appeared as if Finn was trying to persuade them to give up their weap
ons. They clung to the rifles, shivering in the cold. But whatever else Finn was saying, they were listening.

A minute later, Finn was back with her in the control booth.

“Did they surrender?” she asked.

“No, but they will. They're thinking about it.”

“What did you say to them?”

“Told them this wasn't the right time. That they'd get themselves killed. Until we reach the Fringe, they've no chance of survival off the ship.”

“What about the other one?”

“Well, that's the stupid one. Claims he knows how to fly—he's going to make a run for it, the idiot. He
will
get himself killed.”

“If he's heading for the skiff, we have to warn Haller.” She didn't want an ambush on her conscience.

Finn hesitated for only a moment, then nodded. With relief she punched the comm.

“Sir, we've found them. One's crawling through the portside access tube, on his way to the skiff, armed with two rifles.” Edie checked the sensor readout. “He's about a hundred meters from you, moving fairly slowly. Two are holed up in the engine room.”

“Are they armed?”

“Yes, but it looks like they'll surrender. Finn talked them down.”

“You said portside? That's Alpha skiff. I'm still here with Zeke. You need to stop that lag before he reaches us.”

“How?”

“I don't care!” Haller's voice rose again. “We can't defend ourselves here, not against rifles. Turn off enviros in the tube, overheat it—”

“I don't have that sort of fine control,” Edie said, searching for options. “Wait, I have an idea. Stand by.”

She jacked into the infirmary on deck two, holding up her hand to silence Finn when he opened his mouth to question her. They watched the holo as five red dots raced out of
the infirmary, tumbled down two ladder wells, and skittered over to the portside access tube, meters from the skiff's airlock.

“Those are toms?” Finn asked after a moment.

“More precisely, med toms. Armed with tranqs.”

He gave her a crooked grin that she decided to interpret as respect for her brilliant plan. She told Haller what she'd done, and they waited a couple more minutes until the red dots converged on the heat signature from the serf. Within a few seconds he stopped moving.

“I think he's down,” Edie reported.

“Damn right!” came Zeke's exuberant voice. “He just rolled out of an access hatch at my feet. Nice to know some of these toms are still on our side.”

It was over. She could finally relax. The two men in the engine room huddled on the catwalk awaiting their fate, rifles discarded. They made for a pitiable sight.

A warning klaxon went off.

Both serfs shot to their feet, looking up, and Edie followed their gaze. White speckles drifted down on the men's faces.

The bulkhead over the serfs' heads exploded, and a torrent of white foam gushed into the engine room, covering them from head to toe and blanketing the fusion rings.

Edie stood rooted to the spot by the absurd display on the other side of the window. “What the hell is that? Is there a fire?”

Finn leaned over to punch the comm. “Haller! What the hell are you doing?” There was no answer.

She caught the note of panic in Finn's voice. “What's going on?”

“He's venting the engine room.”

In disbelief she stared at the white froth rapidly filling up the vast space around the engine. “But why all the foam?”

“You vent when the engine overheats. The foam sucks up the heat and gets ejected. Haller must've tripped the foam to force the room to vent.”

Fear for the serfs pushed Edie into action again. She
pressed her fingers into the dataport of the control desk and accessed the engine room emergency protocols. They told her the vents would open in twenty seconds. The override screamed its demand for authorization, which she didn't have. Haller had already revoked her security privileges.

“We have to get them out.” She was at the door and onto the catwalk before Finn could stop her. “Get out of there!” she yelled into the whirling whiteness, hoping she could be heard over the klaxon. “Back to the control booth!”

Powerful arms reached around her and pulled her backward. Instinctively she struggled against Finn, still screaming a warning to the serfs now lost in the thick foam.

An indistinct shape staggered along the platform, meters away. The older man plunged through the foam, choking, blindly grasping for the railings.

“Go back!” Finn bellowed in Edie's ear. He pushed her against the door and moved toward the serf.

She couldn't breathe. Blinking stinging suds from her eyes, she looked toward the far bulkhead where rows of slats were tilting open, drawing chaotic streams of foam through them.

Beyond that, empty space.

Finn had the man by the shoulders and half dragged, half supported him to the door, clutching the railing with his other hand. Edie grabbed the doorframe to keep her balance, trying to drag the dwindling supply of air into her lungs. The pressure inside her ears built painfully.

She helped push the serf inside the control booth. By the time the door snapped shut, her limbs were so leaden she could barely stand. Still, she pulled herself up on the control desk, choking the foam out of her lungs, and watched through the window as the foam shot out into space.

Seconds later, the engine room was clear. The klaxon cut out abruptly and the vents closed.

There was no sign of the other serf, or of the rifles or anything else that hadn't been bolted down.

Edie sucked in air, still spluttering. Her clothes felt sticky
and wet. She wanted to shout her outrage but had no voice. Finn sat beside the man he'd rescued, who had collapsed on the deck and lay coughing and retching—but alive.

She hit the comm switch. “Haller.” Her voice came out as a croak. “I told you they surrendered.”

There was a brief pause before he answered. “You told me they were still armed. Are they both spaced?”

The image of a nameless young man tumbling through the void speared her mind. “We saved one.”

“I thought you said they were armed!” He was accusing, angry. “Forget it. I'll send Zeke to fetch him. Get back to your quarters.”

A minor serf rebellion, a dead man, two no doubt facing severe discipline. But it was over for Haller, simple as that.

“Did we lose the other three rifles?” Haller asked.

“Yes.”

Haller swore and cut the link.