Expendable

by James Alan Gardner

  I sighed with relief. He was only irritated, not angry. For all his faults, Tobit was a true Explorer—not like Jelca, overreacting to tiny slights.

  “You were busy with your friends,” I answered lightly. “It would have been rude to interrupt the party.” I glanced at the eagle’s cockpit. “You didn’t bring anyone with you?”

  “There was room for only one Morlock, and I didn’t want to pick favorites.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand: his artificial one, which now seemed fully functional. “To tell the truth, they were such pathetic sots I didn’t have a favorite. Except you, of course, Ramos.” He threw a smacking kiss in my direction. “You’re looking good.”

  “If one more person says that to me, I’ll rip the damned skin off.”

  “Don’t rip off your cheek to spite your face.” He gestured toward Oar. “What’s wrong with your friend?”

  “Jelca shot her.”

  Tobit’s eyebrows raised.

  “It’s a long story,” I said, “and I don’t have time to tell it. Do those missiles of yours work?”

  “Yes. No thanks to you.” He looked at me warily. “Are you thinking of blasting Jelca?”

  “No. I’m thinking of blasting a door.”

  The Blast Radius

  Neither Tobit nor I could guess how much damage the missile might do. We didn’t even know what payload it contained. Chemical? Nuclear? Matter-antimatter disintegration? “Phylar,” I said, “before you mount weapons on a plane, shouldn’t you find out how much bang they have? It might help to know whether you should keep back a hundred meters from your target or a hundred kilometers.”

  Tobit scowled. “I never intended to use the bombs, Ramos; I just wanted them there for completeness.”

  “Completeness,” I repeated.

  “I liked the look of them; besides, flying an eagle is so damned gauche, I needed something to make me look less precious. As soon as I figured out how to command the AI, I had the missiles reactivated and put back.”

  “So you armed the plane as a fashion statement?”

  “Stop bitching, Ramos. You’re the one who wants to blow up a mountain.”

  Difficult though it was, we loaded Oar into the eagle with us, sitting her up on my lap like a limp heap of laundry. She wouldn’t be safe on the ground; there was no way to gauge the blast radius. Anyway, if the missile was nuclear or worse, she’d have to be dozens of klicks away to avoid damage, and we couldn’t carry her that far on foot. Better to have her with us, and simply order the plane to remove itself an adequate distance from the explosion.

  Before boarding the plane, Tobit got a fistful of dirt and smeared a huge brown X on the outcrop that hid the elevator door. The mark would be easy to see at a distance of at least five kilometers. Hitting the mark was another matter—we had no idea what guidance mechanisms the missiles had. Since the eagle possessed no controls, all we could do was say, “Shoot that,” and let the plane do all the aiming.

  Oar and I perched in the right-hand seat, strapped down as best I could manage. Tobit climbed in beside us and stuffed his head into his tightsuit helmet. “Why are you wearing that?” I asked.

  “So I don’t get blinded by the sun,” he replied.

  I looked dubious. The helmet’s visor was clear, evidence that the overcast sky was no danger to anyone’s eyes. If there had been any excess brightness, the visor would have automatically tinted itself.

  “We don’t have any sun today,” I told him.

  “There might be a break in the clouds. Or,” he muttered in a lower voice, “there might be a nuclear fireball of apocalyptic proportions.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I better close my eyes.”

  “Nah,” he answered with an airy wave. “Just hide behind your girlfriend. She’ll soak up the rads better than forty meters of lead.” Then before I could respond, he told the plane, “Up. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Boom

  The eagle rose straight up on its wing-jets, a smooth vertical liftoff. “Keep track of that X mark,” Tobit said to the plane, “that’s our target. Fly to a safe range, then blast it.”

  The plane banked away neatly, then angled into a steep climb on a straight line course away from target. Acceleration squashed me lightly between Oar and the back of my chair, but not painfully so. A small distance short of the cloud ceiling, the eagle leveled off and continued on the same heading, cruising comfortably short of Mach 1.

  “Can you still see the X?” Tobit asked.

  I turned around. The entrance was now far behind us. In the overcast light, I could make out the rocky area where we’d fought Jelca, but not the X itself. “The plane must see better than we do,” I told Tobit. “Telescopic sights or something.”

  “Bet you also believe admirals are your friends,” he muttered.

  I opened my mouth for a retort…but at that moment, the plane rolled sideways, wing over 180 degrees, and we were abruptly dangling upside-down in our safety straps, our heads pointing at the ground. A moment later, the eagle’s beak pushed itself sharply upward: up and around in a buttonhook maneuver that ended with us right-way up again and now pointing toward the target.

  “Cute,” Tobit said with a quaver in his voice, “but it should give us warning when it’s going to—”

  The plane shuddered as a missile launched.

  I thought the eagle had been flying at good speed. No—the eagle was virtually standing still compared to the missile. It cracked the sound barrier as it lanced out, riding a plume of smoke that pointed straight toward the target. For a second, all we could see was the smoke, not the missile itself….

  “Shield your eyes!” Tobit yelled, and I closed them fast, ducking behind Oar’s lolling head in case that really offered some protection.

  The flash was still visible through my eyelids.

  Into the City

  When I opened my eyes, there was a smoking hole in the mountain. Not a crater—a hole straight into the city, with glass buildings visible below. The blast site was circular, a hundred meters in diameter and remarkably well-contained. That pleased me; I preferred not to kill too much wildlife if I could help it.

  “Eagle,” Tobit said to the plane, “see that nice hole? That’s where we’re landing.”

  I stared at him. “You’re taking the jet into a glass city?”

  “The hole’s big enough,” he answered. “And I suspect the elevator’s not working at the moment.”

  The elevator was not even visible—the whole mechanism was simply gone, unless it was part of the surprised cloud of smoke that drifted in shock around the site. The automatic repair systems would clock a lot of overtime in the next few weeks.

  “All right,” I told Tobit, “into the hole, then head for the center of the city. Just watch out for the killer whale.”

  “The what?”

  “Your ride home,” I answered. Then I tried to explain what was happening.

  Not Dead Yet

  After slipping and weaving around the skyscrapers, we touched down in the main square, not far from the whale itself. The noise of our engines should have brought Explorers flocking around; but only a handful ventured away from the whale to greet us.

  One was Ullis. She stared at me for a moment, then smiled wearily. “I never believed you were dead.”

  “Who said I was dead? Jelca?”

  Ullis nodded. “He’s gone crazy. He used loudspeakers to send an announcement all over the city. You had attacked without provocation and he’d been forced to kill you.” She looked at me stonily for a moment. “Why would he say that when it wasn’t true?”

  “To stop you sending out a search party,” I replied. “I know something he wants to keep secret.”

  “I still tried to find you,” Ullis said, “but I couldn’t get outside—Jelca’s locked off the elevator.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tobit assured her. “The elevator isn’t locked any more.” Under his breath he added, “It’s hard to lock anything that’s been reduc
ed to slag….”

  “Where’s Jelca now?” I asked.

  “No one knows,” Ullis replied. “And I haven’t told you the worst part. He’s rigged the whale. It’s going to take off within the hour.”

  Responsibility

  I gulped in surprise. “The ship is taking off?”

  “It went into its launch cycle last night,” Ullis said. “Things have been frantic since then.”

  “But surely someone can stop it.”

  “Jelca must have planned this a long time ago,” Ullis replied. “He planted secret activation devices in almost every system on the ship. Disconnecting them safely will take more time than we have; and it would be disastrous if some systems fired while others didn’t. We can always rip out wires till nothing on the whale works, but it would take so long to repair things afterward…” She shrugged. “Besides, half the Explorers don’t want to stop the countdown. They say we’re ready to go; they’re glad Jelca stopped any further delays.”

  “So,” I said, “you intended to fly off without worrying what Jelca was up to?”

  “Some people have waited thirty years for this day, Festina. This is their only chance to get home. Besides,” Ullis lowered her eyes, “I volunteered to stay behind. To find you and to deal with Jelca.” She took a deep breath. “He is my partner.”

  “Was your partner,” I told her. “And I’m the one who has to stay behind. I can’t leave this planet, Ullis. It’s too complicated to explain, but believe me, I can’t go. I’ll take care of things.”

  “You may need help—” Ullis began.

  “No,” I interrupted. “I don’t want you. And don’t you have useful things to do on the ship?”

  She blinked. And blinked. “Some of the communication software is in rough shape.” Her voice was a mumble, filled with guilt.

  “You have to go.” I laid my hand gently on her arm. “And I have to stay.”

  “Jelca’s my responsibility….”

  “He’s mine now,” I said. “You have duties on the ship. Go. Please.”

  She blinked again, twice, then kissed me and walked off slowly. The other Explorers followed on her heels.

  First Things First

  “That was fucking maudlin,” Tobit announced in a loud voice.

  “What are you still doing here, Phylar?”

  “Keeping you company, Ramos. When you’re all by yourself, you brood.”

  “Go with the others,” I told him. “There’s space for you on the ship—you can have the cabin I equipped for myself. Or take Jelca’s cabin…he won’t need it.”

  “First things first,” Tobit replied. “They won’t launch for a while, and there’s no way I can contribute. On the other hand, I can help you carry this little lady to get recharged with her ancestors. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

  I patted his hairy shoulder. “Thank you, Phylar. You’re a tribute to the Corps.”

  He belched deliberately. “A fucking humanitarian—that’s me.”

  We found a cot in a nearby blockhouse and carried Oar up the central boulevard. The city surely had more than one tower where ancestors could rest their tired brains; but I aimed for the tower containing the Sperm generator. The odds were good Jelca was holed up there, waiting for the whale to take off. Once it was gone…

  I couldn’t guess whether he would activate the generator as soon as the Explorers left, or put it on a delay circuit so he had time to take shelter elsewhere. Was he suicidal or not? If he turned on the generator immediately, he would die—either sucked directly into space or pulped by the windstorm that would result when air started spewing into the vacuum. But maybe Jelca didn’t mind dying, as long as he got his “revenge” and the sooner he put his plan into effect, the less time I had to stop him. He knew I was alive. Considering the monstrous explosion when Tobit and I blasted our way in, he might guess I’d gotten past the unworking elevator.

  Then again, the walls of the tower were opaque; and for all the explosion’s destructive power, it hadn’t made much noise….

  Maybe he didn’t know I was coming. Maybe. But I couldn’t take that chance. I had to assume he might activate the generator as soon as the ship was clear of the roof doors. That gave me less than an hour to stop him.

  Sateen

  I told Tobit to wait with Oar outside the tower. “Afraid of booby traps?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I stepped inside the building. Nothing went boom. On the other hand, Jelca’s radiation suit wasn’t in its hiding place. He had to be wearing it, and watching over his doomsday machine on the top floor.

  “All clear,” I told Tobit as I came back out. “We’ll run Oar inside, then you hightail it back to the ship.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Jelca’s on the top floor. I’m going to pay him a visit.”

  “Dressed like that?” He snorted in disbelief. “You know how many rads these damned towers produce? It’s one thing to duck in for a second then duck out again—that’s no worse than having a few X-rays taken. But if you mosey in, ride the elevator, and spend a few minutes handing Jelca his ass…you won’t have a working blood cell left in your body, Ramos. Hell, by the time you get to Jelca, you may not be able to stay on your feet. The only consolation is that the radiation burns will keep your mind off the radiation sickness.”

  “Wait here,” I told him; and I ran into Jelca’s home next door. Moments later I ran out again, my arms full of the shimmering shirts and pants I’d seen tossed around Jelca’s room. “Radiation gear,” I announced, throwing a bundle at him. “Suit up.”

  Shirt, pants, socks, and gloves. It would have been nice to find a balaclava for head covering, but there was nothing like that. As a substitute, I started wrapping a shirt around my face; but Tobit pulled it away and handed me his helmet. “Happy birthday,” he said.

  “This is the second birthday present you’ve given me.”

  “And I’m keeping count,” he replied. “You’re going to owe me big, Ramos.” He tossed a wad of cloth haphazardly over his own face, proclaimed, “I can’t see shit,” then stumped back to where Oar lay.

  He looked ridiculous—dressed in silver tinsel, the shirt so tight over his belly I could see the indentation of his navel as his gut strained against the fabric. When I put on his helmet, it smelled of rotgut and vomit, almost strong enough to turn my stomach…yet I said to him, “You’re a gentleman and Explorer, Phylar.”

  “Don’t turn mushy on me, Ramos.” He picked up his end of Oar’s cot. “Let’s move.”

  Obstacles

  We placed Oar in the center of the first room—right where she’d get the most light. Her body relaxed as the radiation began pouring into her…as if the warmth had already started to ease her pain. Still, she showed no signs of consciousness, and I could hear the ugly crackling in her lungs each time she took a breath. Gently I arranged her body, flat on her back with arms outspread, like a flower open to the sun; then I laid her axe beside her, just as ancient warriors would lie in their tombs with weapons close at hand.

  “It’s not a fucking burial!” Tobit groaned. “Stop wasting time.”

  “If you’re in a hurry to get back to the ship, feel free to go.”

  “I’m in a hurry to make sure you can do what you have to,” he replied. “In case it hasn’t crossed your mind, getting to the top of this tower might not be easy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s go to the elevator.”

  He marched toward the center of the building, with me close on his heels. When we reached the elevator, he pressed the call button.

  Nothing happened.

  “Oops,” I said.

  “The bastard already proved he can sabotage these things,” Tobit pointed out, “although this time, he’s likely just locked it off at the top.”

  “Maybe there are stairs,” I suggested.

  “Ramps,” Tobit replied. “There were ramps in the tower at Morlock-town. The whole building has to be servicea
ble by robots…and that means the bots need a way to the top in case the elevator itself breaks down.” Tobit’s cloth-covered head swiveled around; I could imagine him peering through the cloth, straining to see. “That door,” he said pointing. “That should go to the ramps. All these towers are likely built on the same design.”

  I went to the door. The latch moved when I pressed it, but the door wouldn’t open.

  “Stuck?” Tobit asked.

  I stepped back and drove a side kick into the door—not hard enough to endanger my foot, but with plenty of strength to loosen any stickiness from a poorly fitted doorframe.

  The metal door boomed from the impact, but did not budge.

  “That Jelca boy thinks ahead,” Tobit muttered. “He’s starting to piss me off.”

  The Muse of Fire

  Tobit and I spent a futile thirty seconds bruising our shoulders as we attempted to break down the door; but it was metal, solid and unyielding—far too strong for us to make more than an ineffectual dent. As we stepped back panting, I said, “Perhaps we should break into the elevator instead.”

  “And what if we did?” Tobit asked. “You think you can climb eighty storeys, hand-over-hand on the cables?”

  “Maybe.”

  I couldn’t see his face under the silvery fabric, but I could feel skepticism radiating toward me.

  “All right,” I said, “why don’t I smash down this door with Oar’s axe?”

  “You’d break your wrists,” he replied. “And there’s an easier approach to try first.”

  He walked into the next room, planted his feet firmly in the midst of the motionless ancestors, and cleared his throat. The next sounds to emerge from his mouth were a mishmash of syllables, some falsetto, others bass, some so liquid they dripped with saliva, others harsh like a man choking. The tone was strong but not forced—commanding and confident. When he finally paused, I could hear rustling from every corner of the room. Closed eyes blinked. Fingers twitched.